Sadie, Sadie
by Telanu
Summary: When Leon Orcot gets an idea in his head, there's no stopping him. DxLeon yaoi. Now Complete!
1. Chapter 1

**Sadie, Sadie**  
By Telanu Rating: R  
Fandom: Pet Shop of Horrors 

Summary: Once Leon Orcot gets an idea in his head, there's no stopping him.

Disclaimer: PSOH and all related characters/situations belong to Matsuri Akino, not me. The story's title is from the musical "Funny Girl." (Look it up, I swear it makes sense in the story's context. g) The poem "The Owl and the Pussycat" is by Edward Lear. I'm making no money from any of this.

Note: This story is set somewhere between "Desperation" and "Dynasty" in volume 9 of the original manga series, but veers seriously AU. Well, you'll see.

* * *

Jill set the paper down in front of him with a triumphant _thwack_. Leon jumped, and smelled newsprint. He was about to ask her what the hell, when the headline caught his eye.

**ECKHART OKAYS GAY MARRIAGE IN CALIFORNIA**

Leon blinked. Oh yeah, that bill had gone to the governor for signature last night. He'd heard about it on the news, but hadn't thought it was all that big a deal or anything. Jill, on the other hand, was practically glowing with glee as she looked down at him.

"So?" Leon asked.

"So it's legal now," Jill said with her biggest shit-eating grin.

"I can see that," Leon said. "So what? Good for them, but what's it to you? You got a girlfriend I don't know about?" Hmm. That conjured up an image in his mind. Wow. Hot.

Jill smacked him on the back of his head and glared, like she'd been reading his mind. Then she went back to smirking. "So, what're you gonna do about it?"

"Do about what?" Now Leon was getting irritated. He'd been smacked on the head, still had half a report to write, and Jill was being a jerk. "What the hell is wrong with you today?"

"Just wondering when you're gonna pop the question to D," Jill said, her grin getting even bigger as she finally got to her punchline. "That's all."

Leon snarled, the assholes in the next cubicle laughed, and Jill hurried away, giggling. Leon swiped the newspaper off his desk and into the trash can, hunched his shoulders, and returned to his report.

He couldn't concentrate, though.

_Pop the question_. Stupid fucking phrase. It even sounded kinda dirty, when you thought about it. Didn't sound romantic. Didn't even sound practical And he'd like to thank Jill a whole lot for rubbing his face in it -- how he was still single, didn't have anybody to pop anything like "the question" to, or even to ask out on Friday night. What a pal.

He went to the pet shop after work, like always, but he was out-of-sorts. He wound up being so rude that D actually grabbed him by his ear and threw him out of the shop, shouting that he could return when he'd learned some manners and could act as a fitting example for Chris. Leon cursed and muttered all the way back to his apartment, but he remembered Chris's trembling bottom lip and D's outraged eyes, and knew they'd been right. He wasn't fit company tonight.

He just wasn't the marrying type, obviously, Leon thought, as he flung himself down on his bed after several calming beers. He wasn't rough or violent, but he had a lousy temper, and a big mouth. He never knew when to shut up. And he was a slob. No woman in her right mind would put up with him for a getaway weekend, let alone a lifetime.

Marriage. What a joke. Jill had some stupid romantic ideas, that was for sure. Leon had seen the books and magazines at her desk and in her apartment that she always tried to hide. Stuff about happy-ever-after and chicks with big tits being undressed by pirates. He'd bet a nut that everybody got hitched at the end of those books. Nice for them. But what happened _after?_ That's what Leon always wanted to know. How the heck did you wind up tolerating another person for that long, after the warm fuzzies and good sex had worn off? How'd you make it last? His own mom had never gotten married. He didn't know how it was supposed to work.

He sighed up at the ceiling, wishing he'd gotten a bigger buzz from the beer. He knew what he thought marriage ought to be like. He didn't think about it a lot, or anything, but he'd seen enough relationships on the rocks (and sometimes, in his department, ending in murder) that he'd come to a few conclusions on his own. Maybe it didn't have to be all about the passion and the sex and the I-want-to-die-when-you-die crap. Maybe it was just about having somebody _there._ Somebody who'd watch your back. Somebody to put up with you, even when you were a dick, or they were.

Leon sighed again, and crossed his arms behind his head. Yeah, that was it. Who said anything about romance? Romance was for pussies with big dreams and no brains. It'd take a lot more than romance to keep him shackled to somebody for a lifetime, that was for damn sure. It'd have to be somebody interesting, for one thing, or you'd get bored. That ruled out most of the women he'd dated already. They'd bored him, and he'd bored them, and once they got out of bed, there was nothing left.

So, yeah, somebody interesting. Somebody he could spend a lot of time with, without it feeling like an obligation, or without even noticing, maybe. Somebody he could get used to real easily, and could like having around all the time, so it felt natural. But somebody he didn't have to be _nice_ to all the time, either, because he fucking sucked at that. Somebody he could have a good yell at, but without ruining everything, and somebody who wouldn't take too much shit, because he sure as hell didn't wanna be anybody's boss. Somebody who could give as good as they got, in all kinds of ways.

That was a good start, Leon decided. Not somebody you yearned for from a distance. A friend. A person who knew your bad points, but liked you anyway, so they'd know what they were getting into. But even that wasn't enough, because so far, everything he'd thought could apply to Jill, for Christ's sake. And why not? She was hot, smart, a good pal, knew him inside and out, not like the women he dated. And she was the closest thing he had to a sister, so, gross. So there had to be something else in the equation too, something that he wasn't thinking of.

Watching each others' backs. That had to be part of it, too. You had to have somebody who was on your side, when the shit hit the fan. And that had to work both ways. They had to watch out for you, and you had to watch out for them, and Jill had made it more than clear that she didn't need or want _anybody_ to watch out for her, ever. She left that for the women in her books. But that was just part of Leon's makeup, the need to protect people he cared about, and the person he married had better be ready to put up with it. To appreciate the urge, instead of telling him it was chauvinist, or some crap like that. To understand where it came from, and why it was important.

Yeah, that too. Understanding. Somebody who _got_ him. Somebody it was easy to talk to. Leon hated talking to people, but every once in a while, when something bad happened, hell, he needed to unload like everybody else. Like that godawful night when Harry and Max had died. He would have exploded if he hadn't gone to D's. Orit didn't have to be that kind of earth-shaking, cataclysmic stuff, even. It would be great just being able to talk about an ordinary day, and how it had or hadn't sucked. Sitting down when it was all over, just hanging out and having a meal, talking about whatever, just the two of them, and maybe a kid or two, eventually

Leon's eyes were drifting closed. Good. Time to put the crappy night behind him. Might as well drift off to pleasant thoughts. Yeah, if you could find the right person, marriage wouldn't be so bad. Might even be great. Somebody to stand by you and share the good stuff and endure the bad stuff and pour you a cup of tea at the end of a long day and send Chris off to bed with a gentle smile

Leon's eyes opened again, and got really big, while his body froze. His defenses were down. He was tired, and lonely, and he'd had four beers, and the smart part of his brain wasn't speaking up to protect him. All he could think about was the realization that, somewhere during his musings, he'd started thinking about Count D as the "somebody," which was so _fucking_ wrong that it bordered on being unfair, and it was also all Jill's fault. Her and her little joke today, which was how this mess had started in the first place.

_Just wondering when you're gonna pop the question to D._

Proposing to D. Marrying D. Hilarious. Ha, ha, ha. To have and to hold, forsaking all others, with Count Motherfucking D.

Just because D was --

And just because Leon could --

He'd judged wrong. He did have a buzz. More than that. He was obviously drunk out of his fucking mind. Leon closed his eyes shut and willed himself to fall asleep instantly. It didn't work.

Great. He was gonna lie here all night, wide awake. He could tell.

_Just wondering when_

* * *

He woke up the next day without a hangover, which pissed him off, because he knew he had to have been drunker than that. He also woke up still thinking about marrying D, which was worse. And when he arrived at the station, Jill took one look at his face and told everybody else to leave him alone. At least she could do something right.

If he'd been no fit company for D and Chris yesterday, he wasn't fit for any human being at all today, and possibly no animals, either. That led to a couple of satisfying sessions in the interrogation room, where he actually got one suspect to wet his pants before confessing. Excellent. Score another one for Orcot. Now that he'd stopped trying to pin every damned crime in the city on D, his arrest record was --

Shit. It'd be great if he could stop thinking about that asshole every two seconds. Especially since D probably _was_ still guilty of some stuff, for sure, even though Leon couldn't manage to connect him to this particular dealer. But whatever. D needed a damned keeper. Somebody to keep an eye on him, keep him out of trouble. And nobody was up for the job but Leon. How much did wedding rings cost, anyway? _Shit._ Therapy. That's what he needed. Therapy, and lots of it. Except that he couldn't talk to a therapist, because the only person he liked to talk to about personal stuff was D.

Leon dug his hands into his hair so hard that he scratched his scalp and went out on patrol alone.

By the end of his shift, he'd talked some sense into himself. Therapy wouldn't do any good, but seeing D would. Yeah. Sitting down with D, and remembering that D was a _guy_ (sort of), and more importantly, that he irritated the ever-loving shit out of Leon on a daily basis. Two seconds in D's company, and these cracked-out thoughts of marriage would be gone for good. Especially since D was still going to be pissed off about yesterday, guaranteed. Leon sighed. Once, that wouldn't have been a big deal, but now there were Chris's feelings to consider. He handled the usual blow-ups without blinking an eye, but he got upset if they fought for more than two days in a row.

Hell, forget a lifetime commitment. He and D couldn't even go for an afternoon without yelling about something. Time to kiss and make -- time to put the latest squabble behind them, for Chris's sake. It'd be up to him, as usual. Leon stopped by a shop and looked at the expensive gourmet candies behind the cool glass counter, before deciding he really ought to be saving his money, and got two chocolate milkshakes to go, instead.

D answered the door with a cold glare, matched by the batbunny on his shoulder. Leon ignored Q-chan and thrust the shakes at D. "For you and Chris," he muttered, watching the pout around D's mouth starting to wobble. "The lady called 'em Death By Chocolate."

D let him in, gave one of the shakes to Chris, and took a resentful sip from his own straw. Then his eyes fogged over in bliss, he sagged down to sit on the sofa, and Leon knew he was home free. He sat down in his usual chair and grinned at Chris. "How's it goin', squirt?"

_Good,_ Chris replied, sipping at his own shake. _How about you? Did you arrest anybody?_

"I made one guy pee," Leon said triumphantly, then glanced quickly over at D, who was still too deep in chocolate heaven to notice anything else. He had his eyes closed, long lashes fanning over his cheeks, and he was sucking on the straw like it was --

_Gross!_ Chris was delighted. Leon dragged his attention back to him. _What'd he do?_

"Just a low-level dealer. Nobody important."

_Gross,_ Chris repeated, still grinning. _I'm gonna go play with Pon-chan now._

Leon ruffled his hair and watched him run off, before returning his attention to D, who had just reached the bottom of the styrofoam cup. After another few all-absorbing seconds, D managed to put the cup down on a jade coaster on the table, with a shivering sigh of delight. Leon gulped. Q-chan finally darted off D's shoulder and began playing with the lipstick-marked straw.

"How do you do this evening, Mr. Detective?" D asked after another moment, his voice breathy for the first words he'd spoken to Leon yet.

"Pretty good," Leon said. He couldn't take his eyes off him. Okay, the shake had been a bad idea. Watching D with sweet treats tended to mess up his thinking. "Sorry about last night."

D waved his hand graciously. "I am glad to see you are in better spirits today. I'm sure your job was very trying," he added, but Leon knew it was just the chocolate that made him so generous. He wondered how far candy could go, in making D nicer than usual. How far it could really, really go in persuading him to to do or to consider stuff that was

This was stupid. This was _insane._ He was acting crazy, thinking crazy thoughts. Therapy was looking more necessary by the second. Jill made one dumb joke, and Leon was sitting here thinking about -- about the criteria he'd set up last night. Sure, D met them all, but Jill had met almost all of them too, and he sure wasn't thinking about marrying Jill, so why D? What on earth made him think he could put up with _D_ for the rest of his life, why couldn't he get this thought of his head? Because he and D would kill each other, for sure. They couldn't go forty-eight hours without some kind of shouting match. They _enjoyed_ them. They -- that was another one of the criteria, wasn't it? Fuck.

Leon obviously hadn't thought his standards through. Okay, so friendship was good, yelling was good, all that stuff, yadda yadda, but maybe there had to be a little of the romance bullshit, right in the beginning. There ought to be a spark. Something that'd keep them both coming back for more, that wouldn't let them keep away from each other. And of course there wasn't one. He could look at D and think, coolly, rationally --

_What would it be like if I never saw this guy again?_

-- and feel like he'd gotten stabbed in the chest.

"Mr. Detective?"

Leon snapped out of it, stared at D, really seeing him. D's eyes were wide, and he looked concerned. "Are you all right?" Leon realized that his own eyes were pretty wide too, and that he'd been staring off into space. Q-chan chirped curiously from his spot on the table, where he'd begun shredding the plastic straw.

"I'm fine," he said numbly. _Never see him again_. He couldn't even imagine it. He couldn't believe that he couldn't imagine it; he couldn't imagine walking down this street and not stopping by the shop, he couldn't imagine waking up to a day that wouldn't have the possibility of D in it. At some point, he'd started taking all of this for granted -- D being here, with his pets, with Chris, ready to fight or listen or taunt or smirk or whatever it was they felt like that day. He'd known D for almost two years now. He'd seen him almost every day for all that time. They'd taken a damn vacation together last month, with Chris, like a real _family_, and even if Leon couldn't remember it, that had to mean something important. Two years and never a dull moment. He couldn't imagine never coming back here. He couldn't imagine losing this. He couldn't _stand_ to lose this.

He could keep doing this for the rest of his life and have no problem with it at all.

Leon swallowed hard. He knew he must look weird; D was still staring at him, and starting to look worried. Then D stood up from the sofa, a graceful slide of movement that practically looked liquid, and he moved over to the tea caddy. "Why don't I make some tea?" he said, too casually. "You look as if you could use some."

"Yeah," Leon croaked. This was like some kind of crazy dream, he knew it was -- but he still felt like he'd just woken up. Then he heard his voice saying something without his leave, in the same kind of overly-casual tone D had just used. "Hey, D," it said. "You ever thought about getting married?"

D's hand paused for the briefest of seconds, and then carried on reaching for a tea canister, without turning to look at Leon. "No," he said. "Never."

Leon's mouth was getting drier by the second. "Oh? How come?"

D shrugged as he opened the canister lid. "I cannot imagine how it would suit me. Would you like -- "

"You never know," Leon said, still hearing himself talk without meaning to talk. "I mean, I used to say that, and now I'm thinking about it."

D still didn't turn around, but kept on preparing the tea. "Well," he said, "that's only natural. You are young and healthy -- of course you are right to consider becoming a husband, a father, someday"

"No," Leon said. "I meanI mean I got somebody in mind. Right now. Somebody specific."

He watched D's movements freeze, and told himself to shut the goddamn hell up, right _now._ This was beyond hypothetical. This was getting beyond explanations, too, unless he wanted to say he'd just been joking and look like an ass.

"You have," D said, after a second. His voice was as calm and even as always, but he was still standing with the lid off the tea canister, making no move to actually put the leaves in the pot. "I was -- unaware of this."

"Uh"

"You never mentioned seeing anybody."

"I didn't know how," Leon said, feeling lightheaded, like he was trying to tiptoe around the edge of a volcano and was two seconds away from making exactly the wrong step. "It was sorta sudden."

"It must have been." D suddenly seemed to remember the tea, and quickly began scooping the leaves into the pot. He seemed to put more in than usual, but Leon wasn't really a good judge of that stuff. "Andand you are already considering marriage?"

There totally wasn't enough air in the room. "Yeah," Leon said. "I, uh -- I can't stop thinking about it. I feel like I'm going sorta crazy. That's why I was in such a bad mood last night," he added, inspired. It was even true, kind of.

"I see," D said, after a long, long moment. He still hadn't turned around to look at Leon, but seemed fascinated with watching the kettle. "Andand Chris? Does hehave you told him?"

"No."

"Have you told _anyone?"_

"Jill knows," Leon said, telling himself that it almost wasn't a lie.

"Oh," D said faintly. "Well, I -- I don't know what to say." Then the kettle screeched, white steam hissing from the spout, and he actually jumped. "Oh! Oh. Ah." He cleared his throat. "How silly. You have obviously startled me." He reached out to the kettle with a steady hand, poured the boiling water into the teapot.

Leon waited for him to ask questions -- who he had in mind, how he'd met her, what she was like, all the normal stuff that any normal person would have asked. But instead, D turned to face him with a bright, brittle smile. "You never cease to surprise me, Mr. Detective," he said. "Forgive me for asking, but are you quite sure you have thought this through?"

That was more like it, Leon guessed. "No. I ain't thought it through at all," he said, never taking his eyes off D's odd, beautiful ones. Yeah, they were beautiful. It was okay to think that, if he was planning to marry the guy. "It's my gut talking. You've got faith in my gut -- right?"

"Ofof course," D said, still smiling, but looking as if he thought Leon might be a little bit crazy. Well, Leon sure as hell couldn't blame him for that. "But, stillno creature's instincts are foolproof, and for such a momentous decision, surely a little more time -- "

"Nope," Leon heard himself say, still looking deep in D's eyes, like he thought he could fall into them. Maybe he could. Looking at those eyes for the rest of his life? He could do that, too. "I figured it out. Sometimes, when you get something right, you _know_ it." And the craziest thing of all was, he was telling the truth. He was getting more and more sure of himself with every word. It made more sense out loud, instead of less. "I think talking to you actually helped," he added. Well, that was true, too.

"It did," D said.

"Yeah." Leon wondered if it was mean, or a bad idea, to be talking to D like this -- teasing him, really, as if they were discussing some woman who really existed. But he couldn't just tell D the truth right _now._ He was pretty sure D would be big on having the whole thing done properly, not as something Leon had just figured out five seconds ago. He'd want a ring and a question, at least. BesidesD could always ask who it really was, and he hadn't, yet. As if he didn't want to know.

"Well," D said faintly, looking a little pale. Leon decided that this could be encouraging. "May II shall be the first to congratulate you, then. She -- she must be a remarkable woman."

"Totally remarkable," Leon agreed firmly. "Trust me on this one. I'm as surprised as you are."

"Iyes," D said, still holding the teapot, making no move to pour. "Well, Ithis _is_ a surprise, no question. But" Suddenly he smiled, as if he realized he ought to, and it didn't look convincing at all. "Well. My goodness. It will certainly be interesting, watching Mr. Detective plan a wedding."

"I don't know if there'll be one," Leon said. "I haven't popped the question yet."

"Oh!" D's body swayed for a second, before he straightened up in a hurry. "Oh. Excuse me. I thought matters were all arranged."

D hadn't been this polite to him since the first week they'd met. "Nope. I think it's gonna come as a surprise, to be honest."

"Oh," D said again. A little smile tugged at the corners of his mouth again--it looked more genuine, this time, and a lot more mean. "Oh, well, then. May I wish you luck in your endeavor."

"I was sort of hoping you would," Leon said.

"Naturally," D said, still struggling to keep the smirk off his face, like he thought Leon wouldn't notice it. "When were you planning to propose?"

"Pretty soon," Leon said. "Gotta get my hands on a ring. I was gonna do that tonight, actually. Wanna help me pick it out?" he added, on another burst of inspiration.

"Alas," D said flatly, "I'm terribly busy."

Yeah, that'd been too much to hope for. Leon scratched the back of his neck, trying to look subtle. "Gotcha," he said. "Any suggestions?"

"I really couldn't say," D said, his tone going frosty. "I'm sure it would depend on the lady."

"It's one classy broad," Leon said, because he couldn't resist.

"And so lucky, too," D said. The sweetness in his voice almost masked the poison. "I _do_ hope I'll receive an invitation."

"Trust me," Leon said, rising from his seat and thrusting his hands in his pockets. "I'm counting on you to be there."

"You are going?" D asked, his malicious smile turning into a frown of confusion. "Don't you want to -- to tell Christopher as well?"

"Not yet," Leon said. "I mean, I don't know for sure, do I? No reason to get the kid all worked up. But," he added, before D could say anything else, "I think I'll get a yes. Eventually. I mean, you're always saying that what _has_ to happen is _gonna_ happen, right? All that Zen stuff." D opened his mouth again, but Leon cut him off, looking him dead in the eye. "So I'll get a yes."

D opened and closed his mouth again, but this time, could seem to find nothing to say. After a few moments, he shrugged helplessly, and made a feeble gesture in the air with his hands, managing another weak smile. Apparently even Count D was speechless in the face of completely crazy people. The hell of it was, he wasn't wrong. Leon knew he'd lost his mind. But some of the best ideas he'd ever had came out of crazy gut feelings like this -- feelings that came out of nowhere, that had no explanation, but that stuck around until he acted on them and always wound up being right on the money. And right now, these feelings were telling him that he couldn't go wrong if he figured out a way to keep D by his side until they both got old and croaked.

"So, yeah," Leon said. "I'll see you tomorrow. Night."

D waved again, apparently still unable to speak. Leon headed out the door at a brisk pace. The shops would close in a couple of hours, and he didn't want to buy the first ring he laid eyes on. Not that he could afford anything fancier than a plain gold band, and those all looked alike anyway, but he wasn't gonna get ripped off.

Crazy, yeah. On top of that, D had just said he wasn't even the marrying kind. But twenty-four hours ago, Leon would've said the same thing about himself. He just had to help D come to the same conclusion he had: that, in spite of everything, they could be good together, really good. D'd be good for Leon, and Leon thought he'd be good for D, too. That crazy Chinese sonofabitch needed a guy on the straight and narrow, someone who didn't kiss his ass like everybody else did, but who could do right by him anyway. And Leon didn't know anybody else, personally, who could put up with D near as good as Leon could--not once they really got to know him, anyway, past the polite smirk and the pretty table manners, to the temper and the snobbery underneath. In fact, as far as Leon knew, he was the only person who ever saw that side of D, period. Another sign that he was right. The clues were starting to add up, to match what his gut had told him. Just like they always did.

Leon gritted his teeth and gripped the steering wheel, heading for the nearest shopping center. It'd all add up, in the end. God, it had to, or he didn't know what he'd do. This was definitely make-or-break territory, here. He didn't know why this all felt so urgent, like it was something he had to take care of _right now,_ as soon as it had occurred to him, when he and D had been comfortably fighting and keeping company with each other for two years. But that was part of the gut feeling, too. Like he'd just figured out something really important, just in time, even if he didn't know what the deadline was for.

As it happened, he did wind up buying the first gold ring he set eyes on, because he liked it. And when the shoplady asked him, to his surprise, he was able to recall the exact dimensions of D's hand.


	2. Chapter 2

See Chapter One for warnings, disclaimers, notes, etc.

* * *

_Chapter Two _

Chris hurried into the parlor, intent on asking his brother a question about a bad word T-chan had just used. But to his surprise, Leon had already left -- he'd only arrived about fifteen minutes ago! -- and Count D was standing very still, holding a teapot in one hand and staring at the closed door with the weirdest expression on his face that Chris had ever seen. It looked like he'd just gotten the shock of his life, only the Count was never shocked by anything.

_Count?_ Chris asked tentatively. _Where did Leon go?_

Count D blinked, twitched, and looked down at Chris in surprise. Which was also weird, because he always heard people coming, even when they tiptoed. "I'm--I'm not sure, Chris," he said. "He wasI suppose he just thought of somewhere he had to be."

Okay, something wasn't right, and Chris felt worry beginning to churn up his stomach. _Is he okay? Is something wrong?_ Even more tentatively, _Did you two have another fight?_

"I don't know," the Count said, looking back at the door. He was still holding the teapot. Then he seemed to realize how spaced-out he sounded, because he shook his head quickly, and set the pot down on the caddy. He turned to look down at Chris again, and smiled reassuringly. "Ah, I am sorry, Chris. I was a little distracted. Everything is fine."

Chris knew that Pon-chan and T-chan were watching from the doorway, while Q-chan sat on the coffee table, looking intently up at the Count from the remains of the Count's shredded styrofoam cup. Uncomfortable in front of the audience, Chris nevertheless said, _Are you sure?_

What he wanted the Count to say was, 'Of course I am sure, now stop being so silly.' But instead, the Count's forehead wrinkled a little, like he was thinking hard about something. "Chris," he said, after a moment, "I want to ask you a question, but I do not want you to be alarmed by it. Do you understand?"

_Yes,_ said Chris, who didn't.

"Very well." The Count knelt in front of Chris so they were the same height, which made Chris's stomach knot up some more, because that meant he was being very serious about something. "Chris, please do not take offense at what I say, or let it frighten you. It is merely a question. But I need to know" The Count took gentle hold of Chris's shoulders while he looked right into his eyes. "Does your family have a history of mental illness?"

_M-mental illness?_

"Is anybody crazy," T-chan translated from the doorway. Pon-chan gasped and clapped her hands over her mouth. The Count flashed T-chan an irritated glance, but didn't correct him, which meant he was right.

_I don't think so,_ Chris said. Then, really worried now, _Is my brother sick? Or -- or crazy?_ Count D always had something insulting to say about Leon, and vice versa, but he'd never say anything that serious if it wasn't really true.

"Of course not," Count D said, but he said it too quickly. "He -- he is behaving a little oddly, however. But do not worry, Chris. We shall get to the bottom of this." His hands tightened on Chris's shoulders, like he was going to give him a squeeze, except that they stayed tight and didn't let up again.

_He's gonna be okay, right?_ Just say yes, Chris thought. That's all you have to say, is yes.

"Oh, yes," the Count said firmly, and the knot in Chris's stomach released at once. "Have no fear." He released Chris's shoulders, stood up again, clasped his hands together and twisted them, and looked around the room with a frown. "Tell me something else -- has your brother mentioned making any new friends, lately? Has he been spending time with any person in particular?"

_Nobody new,_ Chris said. _Not that I know about, anyway._

"Callous imbecile," the Count muttered. Chris didn't know exactly what that meant, but he figured they were both words he could add to the very long list of dictionary-words the Count used to insult Leon. "What is he _thinking?"_ Chris knew he wasn't even supposed to try to answer that. Then, suddenly, the Count pressed his fingertips to his red lips, his eyes going wide. "Witchcraft?" he murmured against his hand.

The knot in Chris's stomach came back, only ten times worse, along with the feeling that somebody had just dumped a bucket of ice water over him, he was so scared. _Witches!_

"Count," T-chan groaned, "now we'll never get him to sleep tonight."

Count D looked contrite, and patted Chris on the shoulder. Chris tried to stop shivering. "I am sorry, Chris. Do not mind me. I am merely a little distracted tonight. You certainly do not need to fear any witches in this place."

_But what about Leon?_ Chris was trying not to panic. Real men didn't panic, and T-chan would never let him hear the end of it. But was Count D really saying that witches were after his big brother?

"I will protect your brother," the Count said, with the kind of calm determination that set Chris's fears to rest for the second time in as many minutes. "I could be entirely mistaken, of course." He smiled kindly. "But there is no need to take foolish risks, is there? No, no." He dusted his palms together. "Pon-chan, please be so kind as to bring me my herbal. I will mix up some special incense tonight that will cleanse Mr. Detective of any evil spirits that might be lingering around him, and then we will all sleep much easier."

Q-chan fluttered up from the table to land on the Count's shoulder. He never took his beady black eyes off the Count's face. Count D reached an absent hand up to stroke his custard-colored head as he began to cover the tea caddy over. "Chris, will you do something for me, and empty the teapot? The leaves have long overbrewed and will taste bitter. Be careful you do not burn yourself -- it is still very warm."

_Sure!_ Relieved that the Count had a plan in place (of course, he always did), Chris carefully wrapped the pot up in a quilted cozy and carried it into the kitchen. T-chan followed him. "I gotta say," he said, once they were out of the Count's earshot, "he's wrong about this one. For once, he's gotta be wrong."

_What do you mean?_ Chris asked anxiously, tipping the bitter tea down the sink.

"Because there is no way any witch worth anything is going to have any interest in doping up a worthless moron like your brother."

Count D had to come in a few minutes later to give them both a very stern talking-to, and made T-chan clean up the remains of the teapot.

* * *

The next day was Leon's day off. He usually loved those -- spent at least a few hours of them at the pet shop, hanging with Chris and getting on D's nerves, and trying not to think about any unsolved cases that had been bugging him.

Today he spent his day off pacing around his apartment, actually cleaning up a little bit, because he needed something to do with his hands, and chain-smoking his way through two packs of cigarettes. He opened and closed the ring-box at least twenty-five times, making sure the ring inside hadn't evaporated, or turned green, or sprouted a magical inscription reading 'He'll never marry you.' And he tried to think about what he was going to say.

Shit, he wished Max was still alive. He'd been a good guy, and he'd managed to land a cool fiancée, so he must have had a few tricks up his sleeve. The Chief was married, too, so he had to have proposed, or at least know something about it. Rogers, Davies, those guys were hitched as well. Leon thought about asking for advice, but two seconds later realized it would blow up in his face. Nobody on the force would believe he was just curious, and the gossip would rocket through the corridors. He didn't want that, not yet, when the whole situation felt sketchy as hell anyway. No. He was on his own.

Besides, how much help would those guys be, anyway? They'd probably all followed standard procedure: date a woman, decide you liked her, have a relationship with her, propose. Nobody was going to be able to help him out with D. He'd have to think on his feet, as usual. Play it by ear.

That seemed to work best, where D was concerned. You couldn't plan too much, with D, because conversations never went the way they were supposed to. You'd start off accusing him of murder, and fifteen minutes later you'd be talking about the skin patterns of Amazonian tree frogs. So it was probably better to have one basic line of argument prepared, and plan to stick with it, and keep coming back to it if D tried to get off-topic. _Let's get married! It's a good idea!_ That would do.

He wondered how Chinese people proposed. Maybe D would listen better if Leon did that. He Googled it, and found out that it involved the parents of the bride and groom sending presents to each other, watching out for bad omens, signing contracts, bargaining like you were buying an animal or something, and weeks of waiting. Well, fuck that. D wasn't one of his pets. Leon would have to represent truth, justice, and the American way like always. Maybe D could just wear red at the wedding or something. They'd work it out.

At about seven o'clock, he couldn't take it anymore. He showered, shaved, gargled about three times, changed his clothes, even put on a tie. Then he took the tie off, deciding that D might try to strangle him with it. But he wore his dressy trousers and only suit jacket, after carefully giving them both a sniff. Smelled fresh enough, if slightly musty from being stuffed in the back of his closet. Didn't stink of cigarettes, at least, which was more than he could say for his apartment by now. Leon pocketed the ring, took a lot of deep breaths, and headed for his car.

The pet shop was oddly quiet when he got there. Usually there were animals running everywhere, Chris right in the midst of them, while D sat in the middle and let it all happen around him, somehow managing to keep everything under control. The eye of his own personal hurricane. But tonight, Leon didn't even get nibbled by T-chan when he came through the door, and Chris and D were sitting quietly together on the sofa. It was eerily silent, with no animals in sight, except for Q-chan on D's shoulder. Chris was staring at some weird Chinese wooden puzzle, trying to figure it out, and D was doing -- holy crap, needlework? He was definitely embroidering something on a silk screen. Christ, how girly could you get?

The shop smelled different, too. Leon sniffed, frowning. D had changed the incense. He'd never liked the original all that much, but this was worse -- less sweet, more herb-y. His nose twitched.

D and Chris looked up as he closed the door behind him, taking in his dressy clothes with wide eyes. D was holding really still, with the sharp tip of his needle pointing right up in the air. Chris looked pale. _H-hi, Big Bro,_ he said. _How are you feeling today?_

"Fine," Leon said, sending D a hard glare. Had he said something to Chris, even after Leon told him not to? Bad start to the evening. He told himself not to get irritated, and reached for patience.

"Good evening, Mr. Detective," D said, just as polite as he'd been last night. He returned to his embroidery. "Would you like some tea?"

"Only if you got it made already," Leon said, deciding that being considerate was the way to go. D and Chris shared a glance that looked kind of spooked.

Then D smiled again, the empty smile he always gave customers, and said, "Chris, why don't you go make sure Pon-chan and T-chan aren't getting into trouble without you?"

Chris was a bright kid, and he knew a clear hint when he heard one. He nodded, gave Leon another worried glance, and scampered for the door. "Hey," Leon called after him, "take that bat-bunny with you." Q-chan looked up from D's shoulder, curiously. "I wanna talk to the Count alone."

Q-chan bristled, but D nodded slowly, and shrugged his shoulder, giving Q-chan a nudge. Q-chan chirped resentfully, but flew off after Chris, giving Leon one last glare. The door closed behind him.

"Did you tell Chris?" Leon demanded with a scowl.

"No," D replied, never looking up from his sissy sewing-stuff.

"Then what's with the attitude he just gave me?"

"Chris has never, to my knowledge, given anyone 'attitude,'" D said with a sniff. "I would wager, if I had to guess, that he was put off by your unusual attire." He finally gave Leon a sidelong, hesitant glance. "I take it this means you havehave proposed to the young lady, or"

"Not yet," Leon said. "That's on the agenda for tonight, though."

"Ah." D's body movements were almost always subtle if he was trying to hide something. But because he was looking for it, Leon saw how he relaxed, just a fraction. "And you have come here to shore up your courage first?" he asked, sounding almost cheerful now.

"Something like that."

"Well, that is what friends are for, is it not?" D set the embroidery aside, rose to his feet, and glided over to a censer that hung from the ceiling, taking it off its hook. "Oh, by the way, I am trying a new blend of incense. I would like your opinion."

"It stinks," Leon said frankly. "I liked the old kind better."

D was still smiling when he turned around, holding the censer from a long chain, but the smile looked strained. "Oh, come now. Perhaps it will grow on you. Here."

He shoved it right under Leon's nose so that Leon got a real snootful. He almost choked, and had to turn away before he sneezed all over D. "Ugh! Jesus! Cut that out!"

D pulled the censer away, and frowned. "Youdon't like it?"

"What did I just say?" Leon tried to put a lid on his temper. Pissing D off from the get-go was a bad, bad idea. "I mean, sorry. I meanno."

"Oh," D said, and now he looked stymied by something. "Ohwell."

"Well, sorry," Leon said, trying not to huff. "It just smells like rotting plants."

"II see," D said. "I suppose I thought you might react differently. Well. Never mind, then." He put the censer down, gave Leon another slightly-spooked look, then returned to the sofa and picked up his embroidery again.

"What the heck is that?" Leon asked. "I never saw you sew before."

D shot him a glare that could have leveled the city. "You mean besides the time I repaired that hole in your jacket sleeve for you?"

Leon turned crimson. "Yeah, besides that. I mean"

"As it happens," D said crisply, "this is a Chinese banner for luck. It reads, 'Best Outcome.' It is designed to bring about the mostpropitious circumstances for a situation. I thought it was appropriate."

Leon blinked. "You made that to wish me good luck? That's" Weird. "nice of you."

D sharply drew the needle through the screen. "Don't thank me yet, Detective. After all, who knows what kind of outcome might be the most fortunate? We can never truly know the future. That is the point of this banner: that we acknowledge that our own best interests are often beyond our understanding." His voice took on a challenging tone. "Perhaps, after all, you will be happier in the long run if you are unsuccessful with this woman, right now."

Leon knew D expected him to blow up at that. Instead, he just kept his hands in his pockets, and stood looking at D as he said, calmly, "Nope."

"Really." D's lips tightened as he kept sewing away, faster than before. "Mr. Detective, I am sure this is not what you want to hear"

"Never stopped you before," Leon muttered, coming to stand by the sofa.

_"but,"_ D continued, his voice turning to acid, "are you quite certain you really know enough about this person? I know you are rash, often foolhardy. But I would have thought that something like this would have been beyond even you."

"That's why I need somebody like this," Leon said. "They're smart. Don't take any crap. Can talk some sense into me sometimes."

"Thank heavens for small favors," D muttered. "Really, Detective. Who _is_ this woman who has you so enraptured? What does she do? How did you meet?"

"Runs a business," Leon said. "We met on the job, when I was investigating a case there. Got to talking. I don't find a lot of people I can talk to."

D had his silkscreen in a white-knuckled grip, and tilted his head forward so that Leon couldn't see his face through his hair. Leon took a deep breath, knowing it was futile to try and slow down his hammering heart. Getting down to the moment, now. He sat down by D on the sofa, and decided he'd feel a lot safer if D would just put down the needle.

"That's lovely, of course," D said, his voice strained, "but hardly a reason for -- "

"I got lots of reasons," Leon said. "Good ones."

D took a deep breath, too, though it looked like calm wasn't coming any easier to him than it was to Leon. "I'm sure you do," he said through his teeth. "But really. You told me yesterday that it was 'sudden.' How much can you possibly know about her?"

"Not much," Leon admitted. "Planning to change that real soon." Because that did kind of bug him -- he talked to D, sure, but D didn't return the favor a whole lot. And when he did, he never volunteered anything really personal. Leon realized he didn't even know how old D was, exactly. Looked like he had a long list to cover.

"For example," D continued, as if he had a set speech in his mind that he was bound and determined to get through, no matter what Leon said, "what are her goals? Does she want a family? What sort of people are _her_ family? You can learn a great deal from that, you know."

"Don't know about goals or anything," Leon said, and took the deepest deep breath ever without passing out. Time to go for broke. "As for family, he's got a grandfather, a father, and a sister, that I know about. I only met the sister once. He never talks about his dad. And the grandfather owns the pet shop he works at."

Leon had never seen anybody freeze as absolutely still as D did, in that moment. He even seemed to stop breathing. Well, that was it -- no turning back now. He pulled the box out of his pocket and flipped the lid open so that the gold band winked dully in the dim light of the shop. It was a nice ring. It even had a few tiny diamonds embedded in it. Nothing fancy or expensive, but Leon thought it looked like something D would like, all the same.

D turned, very, very slowly, to look at Leon with eyes as big as teacup saucers. He looked down at the ring in the box, and then back up at Leon, his lips parting slightly.

"Don't freak out," Leon said, keeping his voice as low and even as he could manage, like he was talking to a scared animal. Because, suddenly, he was. "Just say yes."


	3. Chapter 3

For warnings, disclaimers, etc., see Chapter One.

* * *

_Chapter Three_

Q-chan sat on Chris's shoulder while everybody else milled around him. They all had their ears pressed to the door, behind which Count D sat trying to find out what was wrong with Leon. Pon-chan kept Chris's hand gripped tightly in her own.

The Count and Leon were talking, but their voices were too low for Chris to be able to make out what they were saying. This had to be some kind of record: they'd been talking for ten whole minutes and nobody had shouted. And then, all of a sudden, everything got completely, totally silent.

Chris decided to think that was a good sign. Maybe the Count's special incense had worked. Maybe --

**_"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND!"_**

The Count's shriek reverberated through the door, causing a ripple and a jump to go through Chris and all the other people, actually knocking Q-chan off Chris's shoulder. The shouting carried on, but it wasn't like any shouting Chris had heard before, not even from Count D when he was super-mad at Leon. _"Have you completely lost your -- what can you possibly be -- "_

And then the air shimmered and shivered, and they couldn't hear anything at all. Not a single peep, although Chris was sure that the shouting was still going on back there. It was like some kind of bubble had grown up between Chris and the pets, and the door to the room.

Chris turned to T-chan and Pon-chan for an explanation, his heart thumping wildly in his chest. They looked as shocked and worried as he did.

"I guess he really does want it to be private," T-chan muttered, after a moment. "C'mon, let's get out of here. There's no telling how long this is gonna take."

* * *

Leon was thinking that his eye-of-the-storm metaphor from earlier had been pretty good, all things considered. Because right now, he was sitting smack in the middle of Hurricane D. Could be worse. He'd been prepared for the yelling, since that's just what they did with each other, and when he didn't yell back, D stopped. He'd jumped up from the sofa like his ass was on fire, and now he was standing with his back against the nearest wall, staring at Leon like he'd never seen him before.

"I see," he finally said, through gritted teeth, his eyes burning with anger. "I see. You 'got me,' Detective, I admit it. No doubt my reaction amused you. Well done. A very fine joke."

"I ain't joking," Leon said, still holding the box. He'd been afraid D would dash it from his hand, for a second there, but he hadn't.

"Then -- then what is this?" The outrage wasn't gone from D's eyes, not by a long shot, but it was also joining up with confusion. If it had been anyone else, about anything else, Leon might have felt sorry for him. Had to be a hell of a shock. But he had no room for pity, not now, when all his focus had to be on persuasion. "Is thisthere is no woman?"

"You're the woman," Leon said without thinking, and then, really quickly, "I mean, no, that's not what I mean. I mean, there is no woman. Just you."

"But" D brought a hand up to his face to brush the hair out of his eyes. His body was trembling with shock and anger. It wasn't exactly what Leon had hoped for, but he wasn't all that surprised, either. "ButI don't understand. You're ill. You must be ill. At least I know I haven't bewitched you"

Leon blinked. "You fishing for compliments or something?" It was a lousy time for jokes, which he realized when D's eyes went from really wide to really narrow.

"You are either mad," he said in a low, dangerous voice, "or unutterably foolish. Or I could certainly be persuaded that you are both."

"Just give me a chance," Leon said, feeling really impressed with himself that he hadn't joined in on the yelling. Yet. "I don't care if you think I'm crazy. Just _listen."_

"Listen to what?" D exploded, pushing away from the wall to stalk around the room. "The ravings of a madman?"

"I know it sounds crazy. I know it _is_ crazy. That doesn't have to matter, 'cause it can still work," Leon said. He carefully set the ring box down on the coffee table, noting that D's eyes followed it for a second. "Look. It sprang up kind of fast on me, too. I'll tell you what happened."

"I wait with bated breath!"

"Jill made this stupid joke, about me marrying you, a couple days ago. It pissed me off, and I got mad, but then I got to thinking about it, and I figured out it was a good idea. A really good idea, D. The best idea."

D was staring at him, his lips parting again. "You're serious," he said, after a moment. "You're actually -- "

"I just said I was," Leon snapped, and then winced. _Be nice._ "I mean -- "

"Are you insane?" That was sure as hell turning into tonight's song and dance, wasn't it? "Detective, when have I ever given you cause to think I would entertain -- how could you possibly be so stupid as to think -- marry me? You don't even _know_ me!"

"I know enough," Leon snapped, leaning forward on the couch, trying not to leap off, rush forward, and grab D by the front of his dress. That probably wouldn't help. Yet. "If I'm so crazy, and this is such a fucking bad idea and you'd never even think twice about it, why are you getting _mad?"_

D froze mid-pace.

"Why aren't you laughing at me?" Leon pressed. "'Oh, Mr. Detective, you're so funny,' all that shit you always pull? How come I ain't already going home, feeling like I'm two feet tall? See, I know _that_ much about you, don't I?"

D went white and his hands started to tremble. Leon knew better than to take this as a sign of victory. It was more a sign that D was about to start pitching everything breakable in the room at Leon's head. He put his weight on his toes, just in case he had to jump out of the way, and added, "You think I don't wanna get to know you? Why the hell else would I be asking you this? I want to have the rest of my _life_ to get to know you." Because Christ knew it was going to take at least that long.

D's hands stopped trembling a little. Leon still didn't dare take his eyes off him for a second.

Then D smiled. His coy, fake little smile. Leon tried not to roll his eyes. Did D actually think that would work backwards? "Mr. Detective," he said sweetly, "you are indeed observant. However, even your keen eye can miss certain fine details. There are a few, subtle things about me you seem to have overlooked."

Leon tensed. "Like what? Your criminal stuff? Don't think I missed that, because I haven't -- "

"For example: I am a man," D continued, still all fake-sweet. "Now, Mr. Detective must not feel bad for missing this little detail, because his razor-sharp mind must be terribly busy concentrating on other, more important things. Like china patterns, or engraved invitations."

God, he could be the biggest bitch Leon had ever met. "I know you're a guy," Leon said through his teeth. "Anyway, that doesn't matter anymore. It's legal now. Don't you read?"

D stared at him.

"It was all over the papers," Leon added.

D covered his face with his hands for a second. "You are the greatest buffoon I have ever encountered."

"Great," Leon snapped. "So fix me up. A whole lifetime of harping on my table manners and calling me stupid? You know you want it."

"A lifetime would not be nearly long enough!"

"Exactly!" Leon held his hands out in appeal. "That's my fucking point! Jesus, D, you think I don't get it? I know you're a guy. I know I don't like guys. I don't care. Or I don't care enough, anyway, 'cause it doesn't matter, it's _you,_ I want _you."_

"You -- you want -- " Well, whatever else happened tonight, Leon could at least congratulate himself on being the only person on earth to render Count D speechless like, ten times in a row. "You want me."

Leon turned red, hearing D say it out loud. "Yeah," he muttered.

"You _want_ me."

"Quit it," Leon snapped before he could stop himself.

But D had the momentary advantage, and he pushed it for all it was worth, tilting his head to the side with a coy little smirk. "Good heavens," he cooed, reaching up to toy with the fastenings of his collar, and making Leon's face catch fire. "I had no idea." He even fluttered his eyelashes.

"I said quit it," Leon repeated, hearing his voice come out like a growl. His stomach felt hot and churning, but not like nausea, like something else -- anticipation, maybe, and that was enough in itself to scare him shitless. But he always felt this way, when D teased him with his eyes and his smile. How had he never noticed? Had _D_ ever noticed?

If he had, he wasn't letting on. D just let out the most ringing, mocking laugh Leon had ever heard. "'Quit it'? Hark the man! You come in here, offering me a _ring,_ and then squirm with panic as soon as reality is thrust into your face. Want me! Detective Orcot, you couldn't even kiss me without emasculating yourself. Or perhaps it was a chaste union of souls you had in mind? A platonic partnership?" D sneered.

Leon stood up and took two steps forward before he let himself think about it. D stopped talking, stopped sneering, and got a spooked look on his face again. "What are you doing?"

"I'm gonna kiss you," Leon said, deciding that had been his plan all along. Because, even if he was being a monster asshole about it, D had a point. Romance might not be the biggest thing about marriage, but you ought to at least be _able_ to do that stuff, so he damn well better start adapting. And fuck if he was gonna let D get away with saying that "emasculating" thing.

"You most certainly are not!" D snapped, and when Leon kept coming forward anyway, he darted behind a waist-high curio cabinet, keeping it between them like a shield. When Leon took another step forward, he grabbed a little blue vase from the top of the cabinet and brandished it over his head. "I am _warning_ you, Orcot!"

Leon gaped at him. "Jesus Christ, D!" he finally yelled, the words bursting out of him in a roar that felt so good, he didn't even know how to describe it. To hell and back with being a nice guy. D didn't _deserve_ a nice guy. "Do you have any idea how fucking ridiculous you look? Put that damn thing down!"

D didn't move, but held still, holding the vase over his head, his arm trembling. And a second later, Leon's ire dissolved, and he bent over at the waist with laughter. "Oh my fucking God. If you could see yourself." D's eyes flared with rage, and Leon quickly held up a hand, though he couldn't stop grinning. "Is that an original?"

D froze again, and then lowered the vase back to the cabinet with slow, careful deliberation. "You are correct," he said, striving for calm that didn't seem to be there, "I should not waste such a valuable antique on something as worthless as your head. My teacup collection has suffered enough."

"Damn straight it has," Leon said, still grinning. "Come on, D, look at this. Nobody else'd have us." D didn't look amused -- just sort of confused, angry, and hurt on top of it all. Leon made himself sober up fast.

He held out his hands in supplication. "Listen," he said. "You can stay back there if you have to. Just listen to what I've got to say."

D looked at him, steady-on, fighting some kind of battle inside his head.

"Speak, you fool," he whispered after a moment.

* * *

It was after nine o'clock. Chris sat up as T-chan came into his bedroom. Pon-chan eagerly raised her head from the pillow, and the kids all piled on the foot of the bed scrambled to attention. _What's going on?_ Chris asked. _Are Leon and the Count done yet?_

"The shield of silence is still up," T-chan said. "Q-chan's been flying around out there for an hour, trying to find a crack in it. No good. I had to give him a bowl of strawberries to calm him down."

Chris kneaded the silky blanket in his hands. _What are they talking about?_ he finally burst out.

"How am I supposed to know?" T-chan snapped. "Wasn't I listening at the door with you, dummy?"

"Tetsu, be nice," Pon-chan scolded. "Chris is worried about Leon."

T-chan scowled and put his hands on his hips, but he didn't look Chris in the eye, which meant he was sorry. "Damn," he muttered. "I never thought I'd say it, but at this point? _I'm_ worried about that idiot."

And that was the most frightening thing Chris had heard all night.

* * *

Leon didn't think he'd ever talked so much in his life. He'd lost all track of time. He just knew his throat was raw as hell and that D had finally come out from behind the curio cabinet, and was sitting on the sofa again, pressed against one of its arms with his hands tightly folded in his lap.

They'd been following a pattern. Leon would come up with what he thought was a rock-solid point, D would say something venomous to try and shatter it, and then began the yelling, until Leon got sick of it and brought up another point, sticking to his guns. Lather, rinse, repeat.

But the hell of it was, Leon had more hope now than he'd had all night. D was perfectly capable of physically ousting him from the shop. Or mocking him mercilessly. Or doing anything other than what he was doing, which was at least _listening,_ in between shouting, calling Leon crazy, and digging out ten-dollar-words that were all some variation of "stupid."

Which meant that maybe D wanted to be persuaded. What Leon had to figure out was why the idiot wouldn't _let_ himself be.

Leon couldn't let up. This was the fight of his life, and he knew that if he relented for an instant, he'd lose it. But his voice was turning into an empty croak of its former self, and he was exhausted. This beat any stakeout he'd ever been on, for sure, in terms of stress and aggravation. Even D looked a little rumpled, which meant they'd definitely hit Ground Zero and shot past it by now.

"and Mellow. Don't tell me you don't remember the Mellow case," Leon was saying. He'd been amazed to discover that, as the fight wore on, he'd been able to come up with more and more examples and reasons of how and why he and D could be great together. In fact, the more he talked, the less sure he was of why they hadn't hooked up ages ago, legal gay marriage or not. "We worked together on that one. We were a team. We" He stopped to cough, his dry throat rasping. "Sorry. We -- " He coughed again.

D rose slowly, gracefully to his feet. "Stop," he murmured, holding out his hand. "I propose we call a halt for the moment. I desperately need a cup of tea."

Leon's head dropped towards his chest at the mere thought of liquid refreshment, hot or not. Then he collapsed into an armchair. "Me too," he said. Then, sharply, "No funny stuff." He wouldn't put it past D for a second to drug up the tea so Leon woke up hours later in the gutter with the rest of the trash.

"Detective, we'll be drinking from the same pot," D said, sounding weary. Leon still watched him like a hawk as he scooped the leaves into the pot and set the kettle on the boil. Those looked like the same tea leaves he always used. When D handed him his cup, Leon sniffed it suspiciously before taking a cautious sip. Smelled fine. Tasted normal. Felt real good going down his throat.

D seated himself daintily back down on the sofa, looking a lot more collected now that he had his tea. He added three sugar cubes, and then said lightly, just as lightly as if they hadn't been yelling their heads off for hours, "Mr. Detective, have you ever heard the saying 'Marry in haste, repent at leisure'?"

"No," Leon growled, closing his eyes and sipping again. He knew where D was going with that. "Sounds like good advice, though." He glanced over at D who looked surprised, right on cue. "For most people."

D's hands tightened on the little china cup. "I see," he said, trying to sound patient and calm again. "And why not for u--for you?"

"Because most people aren't sure," Leon said, trying to keep his voice low too. His throat still hurt. "I'm sure. What the hell else have I been talking about all night?"

"A great deal of nonsense," D muttered into his tea, just loud enough to be audible.

Leon gritted his teeth and held back a really rude reply. A truce, they'd called a truce. Maybe it was time to rethink his strategy. He'd pulled examples out of their mutual history, thin air, and his own ass, and while D hadn't thrown him out of the shop yet, he still hadn't said anything like yes. Leon was most comfortable with finding evidence. That was his job. But maybe now it was time to stop gathering the evidence, and start using it to prove the case.

Shit. He was going to have to talk about feelings. This was going to get ugly.

"D," he said, deciding that attack was better than defense, "tell me something. How'd you feel when you thought I was gonna marry somebody else?"

D's face didn't lose its serene expression, but his body twitched a little. Good as a signed confession, coming from him. "Naturally I was concerned," he said. "I thought you had undertaken a momentous decision without proper consideration. How fortunate that I was mistaken."

"You were pissed."

"I was not," D said, though his pleasant tone was strained. "I was concerned, as I said."

Okay, Leon could work with that. "Yeah? Why were you concerned?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" D demanded, finally dropping the act and glaring at him. "You have obviously lost your mind!"

"No shit," Leon said, thinking any man would have to be crazy to put up with hours of this. And that he, personally, was even crazier than that, because he felt ten times more alive sitting here and fighting with D than he ever had making small talk with some woman across a dinner table. "Admit it, asshole. You were 'concerned' because you _like_ me. At least a little."

"So charming." D's voice could have frozen hot water.

"You do. Jesus, that thing you were sewing -- " Leon gestured to the Chinese banner, which had long since been cast to the floor as an afterthought during their argument. " -- that luck thing. Best outcome. Whatever. You made that _for me_, right? How long did that take you?"

"Not long," D said, but Leon, who knew jack-shit about sewing, could tell he was lying. There were a lot of stitches there, tiny and neat. You couldn't just knock something like that out in twenty minutes, he was sure.

A banner for the most "propitious circumstances." Meaning that things would turn out for the best, he supposed, even if it's not the way you wanted them to. He hoped, for a second, that the banner was on his side and not D's, and then got pissed at himself for being superstitious.

He wondered what would happen if he just pinned D down to the couch and jammed the ring on his finger before he could do anything about it.

"I like you too," he said, deciding that D would run in circles forever if Leon kept trying to drag a confession out of him. D blinked, startled, and then -- unmistakably -- got two tiny pink spots in his cheeks before he looked back down into his teacup. Oh, _score._ "Come on, D," he said. "We gotta cut the crap, here. I've had my damn head under a rock, but at least I can admit it."

"You speak in riddles, Mr. Detective," D said to his teacup, his voice just about steady. "I'm sure I don't know what you"

"What do you want? A great big speech?" Leon demanded. "Jesus, I'm not gonna lie to you and say I can't live without you. I could. We both know I could. I did, for years." D looked at him quickly, a mixture of puzzlement and ready-to-be-offended on his face. "But I don't want to, you get it? Because it'd be boring and it'd suck. I'd be missing something important, like an arm or a leg. You can do without 'em, but fuck if you want to, right?" Hey, that sounded pretty good. He was impressed with himself for that one. Even better than the hurricane metaphor.

"Sheer poetry," D managed, but Leon could see him wavering. He got to his feet, walked over to the sofa. D shrank back against the arm, but didn't jump up and try to get away. Leon sat down next to him, never breaking eye-contact.

"We're supposed to be together," he said. "It's right, D. I don't get it any better than you do, but I don't have to. I just know it's true. C'mon, you got good instincts, too. Great ones. What's your gut telling _you?"_

D looked away again, his breathing getting very fast. "I don't know."

"You're lying." Leon scooted closer, feeling his heart rate speeding up again, gearing up for Round Two, which -- he could already tell -- was gonna play out way differently than Round One had.

"I'm not." D didn't get mad about the lying remark, which meant he had to be rattled as hell, and his cheeks were turning pink again as Leon got closer. "I am -- please stop this, Detective! You confuse me. I need a moment to think"

Leon was sitting so close that his thigh was bumping D's, and he could feel the warmth of D's body, and smell the faintest trace of scent. D wore perfume? It figured. Whatever it was, the smell got right up in Leon's brain and made him feel dizzy and reckless. He reached up and took the teacup out of D's hands, and set it down on the table, next to the ring box. "Don't think too hard, D," he said, keeping his voice low again. "Don't talk yourself out of it." He took hold of one of D's hands. He slid his other arm behind D's back on the sofa.

D looked like a deer in the headlights, staring into Leon's face with bigger eyes than he'd had even when Leon had proposed. He was panting a little, and blushing a little, and right now his mouth looked so goddamn good. "Why didn't I know," Leon muttered, staring at it, talking without meaning to, again. "You do things to me."

"I" D swallowed, hard, his throat working. That flawless white throat. His voice was barely audible. "Iwhat are you doing?"

"Gonna kiss you now," Leon whispered, hooking his arm around D's shoulder and pulling him in. D looked as scared as if Leon had said he was going to shoot him. More scared. But he didn't pull away. He looked as if he couldn't move.

Leon leaned in and went for it.

* * *

The kids had started taking bets on what was happening in the front room.

"They're probably just drinking tea," Pon-chan said, holding Chris's hand and trying to be comforting.

"No way!" said Rashaad, a boy with bright green hair and yellow eyes. "Why would we be locked out if that's all that's going on?"

"Maybe your brother has a demon," suggested another kid Chris hadn't met before. "Maybe the Count is trying to cast it out."

"Can he do that?" a little girl asked, her eyes wide.

"The Count can do anything, stupid!"

"Don't call me stupid, you egg-eater!"

"Keep talking like that and you can watch me eat _your_ first clutch of eggs, you -- "

"Shut up," T-chan growled, and they all did. He and Pon-chan were flanking Chris on the bed protectively. Chris had always thought it was neat how the other kids obeyed T-chan without question, but right now he was much too worried to be grateful.

"Maybe the Count's eating him," somebody piped up a second into the silence. Chris and Pon-chan gasped.

_The Count doesn't eat people!_ Chris yelled.

"The Count doesn't even eat meat," T-chan pointed out with a snarl. "He'd never sully his mouth with something as disgusting as that detective."

"You eat people," Rashaad pointed out.

"You want me to start with you, algae-hair? Now shut up and stop freakin' out the kid! Go to bed! Go to sleep! Nobody's eating anybody around here, and that's final!"

* * *

The kiss had started off gentle and kind of scared, with Leon just barely touching their mouths together like he didn't know what was going to happen. He hadn't known. He sure wouldn't have predicted it'd wind up like this, thirty seconds later, with D crushed against the arm of the sofa and Leon's tongue down his throat, Leon's arms pinning him hard.

Somewhere in the back of his head, Leon was telling himself that this was too rough, too much, and too soon, but he couldn't stop. Maybe D had put something funny in the tea, after all, because he felt like he'd been drugged, like he wasn't in control. D didn't seem all that in control, either. He'd gone rigid at the first touch of lips, gasped, and then melted at the exact same moment Leon did, like he couldn't help it. Now his hands were carding through Leon's hair, his body shivering and pliant, and he held on for dear life as they kissed, making soft, whimpering noises through his nose.

Leon was hard as a rock after thirty seconds of kissing. He couldn't believe it. So was D, and feeling it against his leg wasn't freaking Leon out. Was turning him on even worse. He couldn't believe that either.

Perfect. It was perfect. It had never been, _could_ never be like this with anybody else. D had to see that. He had to, or

Leon pulled away, not wanting to breathe, but needing to. In thirty seconds, it seemed like the room had gone upside-down. So had his argument. And the rest of the world. D gasped when he broke the kiss, his hands still in Leon's hair as he looked up at him, eyes hazy and unfocused and brilliant. Leon still couldn't believe the colors in those eyes. D's lips were swollen and pink, and his lipstick had smudged. OhGod.

D tried to say something, but all that came out was a breathless noise. Leon bent back down, kissed him again, long and deep. Felt D's body arch against him in helpless reaction. Oh, God, he had to do something or they were going to go all the way right here on the couch. And it would be great, Leon had no doubts about that, it couldn't be otherwise when they were both so hot for it, but now his gut was telling him a different story -- it wasn't the right time, not yet. Not now.

He pulled his mouth away again, and thought he was gonna die for sure when D gave a bereft little moan. He couldn't go far, couldn't break contact, so he hid his face in the curve of D's throat, where it joined his shoulder. Pressed his nose against the warm, soft silk and breathed in. D had dabbed the perfume in a little spot behind his ear. Leon groaned, and kissed the soft skin of D's jaw before he could stop himself. D shuddered, still cradling Leon's head against him, his fingers trembling.

Leon pulled back just enough to look down into D's eyes again. D's expression probably mirrored his own: shocked disbelief, and desire. "I was wrong," Leon heard himself rasp. "I got it wrong." D's brow puckered. "I take it back. I can't live without you. It's worse than a leg. D." He grabbed D's shoulders brutally hard, and put every ounce of his heart into his next words. _"You can't say no." _

"Leon," D panted, looking like he wanted to say something but didn't know what. At the sound of his name, Leon kissed him again, hard.

When they stopped, D appeared to be scrambling for his wits, trying to speak normally. He couldn't, quite. "If," he managed, "if it is desire you feelif thisis what you want" His fingers reached down to stroke across Leon's cheek, and Leon lost all the air in his lungs. D's voice got really, really small. Almost timid. "Perhaps we couldit might be enough"

Leon closed his eyes, and felt the touch of the fingers drop down to his shoulder. He knew what D was offering: a night with no strings. And he wanted so bad, right now, he was almost tempted to say yes -- to say anything that would let him make D his. He shook his head fast, before he could do or say something he'd regret later, and opened his eyes again. "Wouldn't be enough," he croaked. "You know it wouldn't be. It's gotta be all or nothing." And it couldn't be nothing. That wasn't an option. D closed his eyes and trembled. "D, I'll, I'll be good to you," Leon pressed on, hearing his voice start to crack with desperation. "I know I suck sometimes, but I'd be good at this, I wouldn't cheat, I'd be solid, I'd be there"

D turned his head aside, eyes still closed, quaking harder than ever. He moved his hands from Leon's shoulders to his chest, as if getting ready to push him away. Leon fisted his hand into the silky folds of D's robe, just barely resisting the impulse to shake him. "No! D! You can't -- "

"That's right," D said, opening his eyes at last, his voice flat, almost dead. "I can't." He looked at Leon then, a bleak expression in his eyes. "I cannot, Detective."

_"Why?"_ Leon tried to sound calm, but it came out more like a roar, painful and raw.

D pressed so gently against his chest, made such a subtle, pathetic motion to get away, that Leon couldn't help but let him. He sat up, feeling like he had a hole in his chest, and gave D room to breathe.

"You know so little about me," D managed. "And what you do not know could lead you into danger. Grave danger. I cannot, I will not allow that. Because, as it happens" He took a deep shaking breath. "I dolike you."

"What do you mean," Leon said, "danger." He wanted to say it didn't matter, that he could take care of himself, but with D, you never knew. And if D was gonna lay all his cards on the table, at last, Leon sure as hell wanted to see them, even now, when he hurt so bad he could hardly see straight. It was high time he knew what he was really dealing with. "You finally tellin' me you really are a criminal?"

D laughed, a breathless, humorless sound. "And if I was?"

_"Are_ you?"

"It is not that simple." D reached up to push the dark hair out of his eyes. "Detective. I can now accept that you are sincere in your desire to marry me. But I repeat: you know so little about meyou are proposing, I say, to a stranger, no matter how strenuously you protest. And if you knew the truth" D's voice almost got shaky on the last word, "I believe wholeheartedly that you would withdraw your request."

"So tell me the truth," Leon said flatly. "Tell me why you won't marry me and why you wanna screw up the rest of our lives. And it better be good."

D looked nonplussed, which meant that what he said next came out sounding not-so-convincing. "I sell drugs and run a slave-trading ring."

"You do not," Leon said, feeling the dregs of his patience start to evaporate.

"I do not," D admitted, "but you would have found that far more palatable."

"Oh yeah? What could be less palatable than _that?"_ Leon asked, aware that he probably didn't want the answer.

D tilted his head to the side, and regarded Leon for a long, incredibly unsettling moment. Something weird happened to his face. It took Leon a second to realize that, after hours of seeing D off-balance, the old mask had just slid back on, almost flawlessly.

"That I am not human, and the shop is run by magic."

Leon almost scoffed, until he realized that this time, D was being entirely serious. So he gaped, instead.

"Come now," D said. "Is that not the sound of insanity? Surely you cannot wish to marry a madman." But his eyes weren't hazy with confusion and desire and regret. Not anymore. Now they were cold, sharp, and anything but crazy.

"You're not a madman," Leon said carefully, watching D's face. This was some kind of test. He knew it was. But he didn't know what the rules were, or what he had to do to pass. "But I don't" Nope. He couldn't bluff his way out of this one. "Okay, I don't get it. What are you talking about?"

D watched him for another second or two, still with that eerie look on his face. Then he slid away from Leon even further, and rose to his feet. Leon remained crouching on the sofa, until D held out a slender hand to him, offering to help him up.

"Very well," he said, his voice low, and thrumming with something Leon had never heard before. "It has come to this at last. Get up, Mr. Detective. Get up, and I shall show you what I mean."

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

For warnings, disclaimers, etc., see Chapter One.

* * *

_Chapter Four_

Chris wasn't sleepy. He wasn't. He was much too worried about his brother to be sleepy. Still, his big bed with all the pillows was feeling more comfortable with every passing second, and Pon-chan had fallen asleep an hour ago; her deep, even breathing was lulling Chris, too. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to go to sleep. He'd probably wake up in the morning and everything would be fine, fixed overnight by the Count, like magic. Whatever problem there was would evaporate with the sunshine. Yeah. It wouldn't be so bad...

Chris had just made up his mind, was just starting not to be able to tell if he was asleep or awake, when he heard the Count's voice speaking as clearly as if he'd been standing right next to the bed.

**_Arise._**

Chris's eyes flew open, when he hadn't been sure he'd closed them. He wondered if he'd dreamed that voice, but a second later he knew he hadn't, because Pon-chan had sat bolt upright on the bed with a gasp.

_**Arise,**_ the Count's voice repeated, although the Count himself was nowhere in sight. _**Let the sleeper wake, and let the alert guide his brethren forward in peace. Arise. I call you.**_

Pon-chan looked frantic as she pulled her night-cap off, her blonde ringlets springing free. "Come on," she said. "We have to go to the front room!"

_Why?_ Chris was even more confused than he'd been all night. _Where is he? Is there some kind of loudspeaker in here?_ He'd never seen one.

"The Count doesn't need a loudspeaker," Pon-chan snapped, looking upset. "Come on, get up. It's a summoning. We all have to be ready." Her bottom lip trembled. "The last time he summoned us was when the shop moved to L.A. Somaybe he's getting ready to move it again."

_Move it?_ Chris couldn't believe her. _You mean--leave? Leave Los Angeles? But..._ But what about him? And Leon? Would Count D take them, too? Why was the shop moving, and where would it go?

"We move every few years," Pon-chan whispered. "We've been here for two years already. Maybe it's time." She couldn't look Chris in the eye. Chris thought she might even start crying as she tugged on his hand. "Come on!"

Chris let himself be pulled out of bed, and he realized he'd never put on his pajamas as he stumbled back out to the front of the shop. The hallways were beginning to stir, people poking sleep-rumpled heads out of doors, some of them looking excited, some of them looking grumpy, but all of them looking expectant. Everybody looked like they knew what was happening way better than Chris did.

T-chan was already waiting by the door when Chris and Pon-chan arrived. They hurried up next to him. His face was grim as he looked at the closed door.

_What's happening?_ Chris asked him. _Is my brother--_

But before T-chan or anybody else could answer him, the door opened, and the Count emerged, followed by Leon. Leon's clothes were rumpled, and he had circles under his eyes, and his mouth was set in the frown that meant he'd been yelling a lot. This wasn't so weird, but Count D looked awful, too, and he never looked awful. His clothes were creased and rumpled, which never happened, his lipstick was smeared, and he looked tired. Tired, and sad.

Lots more people were gathered in the corridor now, but nobody was making any noise. They were all watching the Count. Even Q-chan rested silently on the top of a nearby kid's head, never taking his eyes off Count D.

"D," Leon said, "what is -- "

Count D held up his hand for silence, but didn't look at Leon. Instead, he addressed everyone in the hallway, including Chris. "Your attention, please," he said. "I have an announcement to make. Tonight, Detective Orcot has requested my hand in marriage."

Chris's jaw dropped. Everybody around him started talking at once. Pon-chan squealed and grabbed his hand. Only T-chan and Q-chan were silent; they both kept on quietly watching the Count, their faces never changing.

"What the hell are you doing?" Leon demanded. "Why are all these animals out here? And if you think this is the right way to tell Chris -- "

"Therefore," Count D continued as if Leon hadn't spoken, "I think it is only fair that he learn the truth about this place. I am taking Detective Orcot on a tour of the shop."

Everybody fell silent again at once. Chris couldn't think of anything to say or do. This was too many surprises at once. Leon didn't like Count D, he said so all the time. But he'd asked him to marry him? And they were both men, too. And Count D didn't look anything like happy or excited about it -- just sad and remote, while Leon looked mad. And Leon was never allowed in the back of the shop, for some reason, so what was going on here?

Chris wanted to reach out, tug on the Count's sleeve, or even take his hand, like he did when he needed extra reassurance. But the Count had his hands clasped tightly in front of himself, and something about him warned Chris that he didn't want to be touched right now. Even Q-chan hadn't gone to sit on his shoulder.

"Please make way," Count D said, and the crowd parted ahead of him, clearing a path without a word.

* * *

A few minutes ago, Leon had been certain that D had been pulling his leg, or speaking in some kind of code. Now he had to wonder if maybe the asshole really was crazy, after all.

Either that, or Leon was. It seemed insane to talk to animals like they were people, and expect them to understand what you were saying. But thenD had said, "Please make way," as if he was talking to a roomful of humans, and the animals had moved out of his way like all of them spoke perfect English. And D had always been kind of unusual around animals. Leon had never met anyone else who had his touch with them. Maybe -- maybe they really_ could_ understand --

Leon closed his eyes and shook his head rapidly. It had been a long night, he was exhausted and disheartened, and only sticking around because he couldn't make himself let go of that last, tiny shred of hope that D might change his mind. Now was not the time to go thinking about complicated, impossible things. If D thought a tour of the damn shop was going to make a difference, fine, he'd take the tour.

He started to follow D down the hallway, when somebody tugged at his hand. Chris. Poor kid looked like he'd never gone to bed, although he looked sleepy, and scared to death. _B-big bro?_ Even though Chris wasn't speaking out loud at all, he still sounded like he was whispering. And thatthat was something else, of course, something else Leon didn't let himself think about too much. How he could hear Chris as clear as day, when Chris never said a word out loud, sometimes didn't even move his mouth. Who was to say D hadn't learned to hear animals like that?

Complicated. Impossible. Leave it alone.

He squeezed Chris's hand and pulled him down the hallway. Chris held that raccoon tightly by the paw with his other hand. The stupid goat-tiger-thing trotted along at his side. "It's okay, Chris," Leon said, because that's just what you were supposed to say to kids, no matter what.

_Did you really ask the Count to?_

"Yeah. I really did." Leon felt his mouth set in a grim line as he glared at the back of D's head. D didn't turn around, or even act like he heard what they were saying as he glided down the hall, Q-chan flapping around his head without coming to rest on him.

_Y-you're going to marry the Count!_

"Dunno," Leon said harshly, over the lump in his throat. Why the hell had D had to say it like that? If he was going to turn Leon down, and it looked like he was sure going to try, why break it to Chris that way? "Hope so," he added, because he _knew_ D could hear them. "We'll have to see what he says after the tour."

_But you're always fighting with him!_

Leon fell back on, "You'll understand when you're older." Which Chris probably wouldn't because, God willing, Chris would be normal.

He'd hoped it would shut the kid up, because they were approaching some stairs that led further down, deep into the shop. How much farther down could they go? The shop was already in a basement. And how far back did this corridor extend? Shouldn't they have already hit the end of the shop by now? But Chris interrupted his thoughts by saying, _Bro? Why'd you call all the people animals?_

Leon stopped in his tracks and frowned down at Chris. "What?"

Chris waved at the animals that surrounded him, that had stopped when they'd stopped and now looked up at Leon with something that seemed unnervingly like sentience. _They're people,_ Chris said impatiently. _Don't call them animals. They're people!_ he added, when Leon stared at him.

Leon turned on his heel to regard D, who had stopped a few feet ahead of them, and was watching them with an inscrutable look on his face. "D, what the hell is my little brother talking about?" he asked.

D's lips twitched into a smile, then, but it was the saddest smile Leon had ever seen. "Two brothers," he murmured, "each of whom sees only one side of the truth. You are both correct, Chris. The people are animals. The animals are people."

Chris and Leon both stared at each other, and then back at D, looking at him like he was crazy. It would be so easy for Leon to say he _was_ crazy, except that his little brother was insisting that animals were people and Leon could hear him talking without words, and all the damn animals were listening in as if they understood every single thing that was going on around them, and something had always, always been a little bit weird about this shop. He couldn't see any end to the corridor.

"D," he said, his voice coming out a lot fainter than he wanted, "what's going on here?"

"You are about to find out," D said blandly. "Don't you want to, Detective?" Leon thought about that for a minute, aware that his whole body was tensed up, as if he was about to grab Chris and go running out the door, away from something he couldn't face. But he didn't know what that something was, and D's eyes were anchoring him here, grounding him, reminding him why he couldn't leave.

Leon nodded, and D gave a creepy, humorless smile. He drew up to a nearby door, and then smiled down at Chris, too. "Chris," he said, "I think it is time for your brother to meet Phillippe."

_Ookay,_ Chris said, looking apprehensively up at Leon. Leon had heard Chris talking about Phillippe. D had explained it was one of Chris's favorite animal pals. Did Chris think Phillippe was a person?

D swung the door open, and Leon followed Chris inside. Once he was in, he would have turned around and marched right back out again, except that he'd frozen to the spot.

He was standing on a beach, with a bright half-moon shining overhead. The stars shone clear and pure over a cove of lapping, dark salt water. Under the stars and the moon, the sand looked as soft and white as snow. The leaves on the palm trees swayed gently in a cool, tender breeze. It was no L.A. beach. There was no smog, no light pollution blocking the stars, no trash littering the shore. No junkies or stoned teenagers or tourists, or anybody at all. It was like something off a postcard. It was in the basement of a pet shop in Chinatown.

Complicated. Impossible. And he couldn't look away from it this time.

Leon felt Chris's hand slip out of his own, but he was too frozen, too numb to do anything about it. He felt something rub his eyes, and realized that it was his other hand, come to check if he was dreaming. He looked around for D, who stood shimmering and still in the moonlight a few feet away, watching Chris hurry across the shore. _Look, Leon! Here's Phillippe!_

Leon heard the unmistakable "akka-akka!" cry of a dolphin, and sure enough, when he strained to look, he saw a sleek, silvery form with a bottle-nose leap out of the cove to greet Chris like an old pal. Leon stumbled forward a few steps to get a better look.

A dolphin. A beach. Stars. Goddamn _palm trees._ In Count D's basement.

"What?" he asked D, unable to come up with anything else to say. It came out as a breathless, disbelieving whisper. He wasn't even sure D had heard him, until D turned to look at him, still wearing that smile. Sometime in the last few minutes, Leon had no idea how, his clothes had started looking pressed and perfect again, and his lipstick had slid right back into place. The moonlight brought out the shifting shadows in his eyes, made his pale skin glow, and Leon's breath caught in spite of himself.

Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he was on drugs. Maybe he'd finally lost his mind. But _this_ was the same: this feeling of getting bowled over by D, overwhelmed by him, and needing to find out the truth, no matter what it took. He walked towards D, who didn't move, didn't even change the still, calm look on his face.

"When Chris looks at that dolphin," Leon asked, hearing his voice shake and hating it, "what's he see?"

D raised an eyebrow, glancing over at Chris, who was talking earnestly to Phillippe and shooting them both worried looks. "A young boy in scuba gear, I believe," he said.

"And you? What about you?"

"I see the truth," D said. "I see Phillippe as he really is." Before Leon could yell and shake him and ask him what the hell that even meant, D called out, "Christopher!" Chris looked up, and immediately began trotting back across the sand. "It is time to move on. There are many more rooms to show your brother."

"How many rooms?" Leon demanded. "How many rooms like this? Has Chris seen them all? What _is_ this place?"

"Mr. Detective," D said, smiling again, "it is a pet shop. As it always has been. Nothing more."

"Will you cut the _bullshit,_ you -- "

_Phillippe says he's glad you came,_ Chris said, reaching them. _He says he's always wondered what you looked like. He says he was jealous of the way everybody else got to see you._

Leon looked up, saw the dolphin peering out of the water, and gave it a weak wave, feeling like an idiot. The dolphin barked happily, and disappeared under the waves again.

_Count,_ Chris asked, sounding almost scared, _what's happening? Are you going to move the shop?_

Leon blinked. "Move the shop?" He looked over at D, who was watching the lap of the waves on the white shore.

_Pon-chan said the shop moves every few years,_ Chris whispered, still looking up at D pleadingly. _That you've been here long enough and might be ready to go now. Count, please don't leave! I'll be goodjust stay a little bit longer, I don't want you to go_

"Leave?" Leon heard his voice drop down into its lowest, most dangerous register. "Move the shop and leave? D, what's he talking about?"

D looked at Leon then, and his expression hadn't been that remote since the day they'd met. Only this was worse, because Leon _knew_ D was hiding feelings behind that mask. He had to be. He'd given too much of himself away, in the front room, to take it back now.

"He is telling the truth, Detective," D said, his voice low and calm. "This shop has never stayed in one location for as long as it has remained in Los Angeles. I should have left months ago. A mistake that I think I must remedy soon. It seems only fair to tell you that."

"Fair?" Leon sputtered. _"Fair?_ What do you -- where would you _go?"_

"I don't know. Anywhere," D said quietly. "Another Chinatown, perhaps. They exist all over the world, Detective."

Leon forgot about Chris and Phillippe and magic corridors and palm trees. He grabbed D by his shoulders as hard as he could, as if he thought D was going to turn into vapor any second, and the rest of the shop with him. "You'll what? Just leave? And you think that's fucking _fair?_" He shook D, hard, red hazing the edges of his vision. "You can't. You can't _do_ that!"

"I'm afraid I can, and I must," D said. His voice was cool and level, but Leon could feel slight tremors running through his body. "With some regret, of course. It is never pleasant to leave friends behind. But it must be done, for the sake of the animals."

"For the sake of the animals?" Leon roared. "The _animals?_ What the hell do the animals care where they are? Cut the crap, D! This is about you, not them!" He'd been half-certain, ever since entering this room, that he was dreaming. Now he was praying that he was. This was a scene straight out of nightmare -- worse, straight out of that revelation he'd had yesterday, sitting in the front room. Now a life without D stretched out before him, his worst fears all getting ready to come true.

And freaky rooms or not -- marriage or not -- life without D --

"Yes, it is," D said with surprising sharpness. "It is about me, as well." He twitched his body, and all of a sudden Leon let go, his fingers going nerveless and numb, as if he had no control over them. "Detective, over the past two years, you have seen more of my magic, of my family's magic, than any human being has ever been privy to. It is not a testament to your skills as a detective that you have learned nothing from it, have observed nothing from it, have put none of the pieces together. But even you cannot overlook this. Do you think I can stay, now that I have shown you the truth? Do you really think you _want_ me to stay?" D tossed his head back, looking proud and disdainful, but his mouth was trembling at the corners. "You have so much invested in your limited, blinkered view of the world, Officer Orcot. It will be a simple matter for you to return to that when I am gone."

'When I am gone.' It was like a jail sentence. A death knell. Leon had said he couldn't live without D. He hadn't been kidding. Words trembled on his tongue: _I'll find you. You can't run away from me because we can't be apart. No matter where you go I'll hunt you down and_

He didn't like those words. They were creepy and scary and wrong. They were a stalker's words, the kind of words some asshole came up with when he was trying to explain why he'd killed his ex-girlfriend's pets and followed her around everywhere she went. Leon had always hated those pathetic fuckers and known he wasn't one of them, would never be one of them, because he was decent.

He didn't feel decent now. He felt crazed, lost, desperate in a way that none of those loser guys could possibly have known, because something horrible was about to happen--D, out of his life--and he was about to lose something that made his life worth living.

But he could say all that to D, every word of it, and none of it would make a difference. He'd tried it already. Shaking and threats and shouting wouldn't work, not now. Instead he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and made the greatest effort of his life, reaching for calm. Then, he also reached out towards D -- this time, taking both his hands, in a gentle grip.

He opened his eyes. "You gotta leave now, because I know the shop'smagic?" he asked. D looked away and nodded. "Why?" Leon asked, trying to sound reasonable with the very last functioning part of his brain. Everything might depend on what he said and did, right now. "'Cause you think I'm gonna squeal? Who could I tell? I'd sound like a lunatic." D glanced at him, looking wary. Leon tugged a little, drew him closer. "Everybody at the precinct already thinks I'm nuts, the way I've gone after you. Telling them the shop is magic and you got a beach in your closetthat'd be all they needed to lock me up and throw out the key."

"Nevertheless," D said, his voice a little unsteady again, "no human can be fully prepared for -- "

"Besides Chris?" Leon interrupted.

Then they both remembered Chris was there, and looked down at him. He was holding Pon-chan tight against him, watching them both from a few feet away, with tears running down his face. Poor little -- but as bad as Leon felt for Chris, he couldn't afford to focus on him right now.

Leon felt D tense and shiver. "Chris isexceptional," he whispered.

"So let me be the exception too." Leon tugged again, until D was standing right in front of him, so close that they were almost pressed together. Almost. "Fuck, D, I admitted I had my head under a rock, didn't I. You think a magic beach is enough to drive me crazy? I've been putting up with you for two years!"

"Detective," D said, "this is only the first room on the tour. To paraphrase the popular saying, you haven't seen anything yet." He sounded cool, almost flippant--but Leon saw something in his eyes that looked like a really tiny spark of uncertainty. Leon kept looking at him, and dared to lean forward until their foreheads were pressing together. He kept firm hold of D's hands.

Complicated. Impossible. Just like D. Just like everything else in Leon's life these past two years, and if he had to go insane to keep it, maybe it'd be worth his while. Besides, what were his options? He'd already seen this room. He couldn't just forget about that, no matter what D said. It was going to drive him worse than crazy if he didn't see the rest, now.

"Show me," he said, painfully, knowing he wasn't ready for it and never would be. "Show me all of it, and see if I run before you do."

D took a step back, looking stunned, looking pale. He nodded, once, and led Leon and Chris out of the beach room, back into the incense-scented corridor, where everybody else was hanging around, waiting to see what was going to happen. Leon stared as he passed by them, trying to see what Chris saw, trying to see if any of them looked like people, but they didn't. So he gave up and kept on following D, with Chris right on his heels.

They were almost to the next room by the time he realized D was still holding onto one of his hands.

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

For warnings, disclaimers, etc., see Chapter One.

* * *

_Chapter Five_

Things didn't get any less weird after the beach room. Next thing he knew, Leon was wandering at the foot of a forested mountain, looking up into miles of mist and greenery, spotting the occasional giant panda. After that, it was a steamy jungle where jaguars and tapirs roamed through the undergrowth, and insects the size of his head swarmed around exotic flowers he'd only ever seen in greenhouses. Then he watched tiny, sand-colored animals and reptiles skitter across the endless surfaces of sand dunes. All beneath the light of the same half-moon and stars. Through it all, the only anchor he had to reality was D's hand, which never let go of his own. Chris, he couldn't help but notice, didn't seem to think any of this was weird, and chatted comfortably with the animals like they were all old buddies.

Not all the rooms were mini-ecosystems. Some were parlor rooms, just like the front room of the shop, with ornate lanterns, couches and chairs with animals flopped all over them. No cages anywhere, except for a few of the birds. Everything roamed free and nothing seemed out of control. All the animals came up to D to greet him, sniffing or licking his hand, or maintaining a respectful distance.

"Sohow many rooms are there?" Leon asked, as he tried to keep out of the various mud puddles in a marsh. A heron called sadly from across a reedy pond. "I meanI don't see anything like the end of 'em, and we must have been in fifteen by now, at least"

"I do not know," D surprised him by saying. He'd let go of Leon's hand now, in favor of keeping Chris away from the edge of the murky water. "Even I have never visited all of them. Not in person. I am aware of everything that happens in the shop, at all times, but I could not give you exact numbers, Detective. The shop is constantly changing, and does not lend itself to such precise calculations." He tilted his head to the side. "I must say, you are taking this remarkably in stride."

"Yeah," Leon said, trying to sound casual instead of totally freaked, "wellI mean, it's not the first time I've seen rooms like these, is it? There was that time I interrupted thatthat marriage interview, and that girl" his voice trailed off sheepishly. That was probably a bad subject to bring up, considering.

"Oh, yes, I remember." D's voice was sour.

"Well, anyway," Leon said quickly, "I didn't freak out then and I'm not freaking out now. Okay?"

"But you have seen only the most normal aspects of the shop thus far," D said, still resting his hand on Chris's shoulder. Chris still looked spooked by whatever was going on between D and Leon, and miserably tired on top of that; they'd been exploring the shop for hours. But he still leaned into D's touch, like he was hoping it meant that everything would be okay. Leon wished like hell that that was true. Something flittered in his peripheral vision, and Leon turned his head to watch Q-chan flying past, circling around all three of them overhead, watching them. He hadn't been sitting on D's shoulder like usual.

"Normal?" Leon said, hoping he'd heard wrong. "A beach and a desert in the basement is normal?"

D gave him a cold smile. "Perhaps you are 'freaking out,' after all. I could hardly blame you."

"No shit," Leon snapped. "But I'm _not."_ Because he'd never give the asshole the satisfaction, if for no other reason. He could take this. "This is what's supposed to send me to the crazy house? Nice try."

He should have known D would take that as a challenge. "And if I showed you something more unusual than this?" he asked softly, dangerously, his eyes narrowing. "Something your human mind could not comprehend? I will be curious to see how you deal with it."

"If I got a human mind," Leon said, ignoring the taunt for now, "then what do you have? You said you weren't human. So what are you?"

"Something that hates humans," D said with a sneer. Leon sneered right back. Sure, D had never liked people. He'd made no secret of that. But nobody that 'hated humans' would take Chris in like a little boy lost, or feed Leon on demand, or kiss like he needed it. And D had sure as hell felt human, or close enough to it, on that couch.

"You hate me?" he demanded, pressing the point. "You hate Chris?" Chris gasped, and looked up at D, eyes going big. D went pale again, and looked out over the marsh. The heron called out once more.

"That's what I thought," Leon said.

"You know not whereof you speak," D said harshly, still not looking at either of them. "My familyour history" He moved his hand from Chris's shoulder, and clasped it in his other one. "No. I will not tell you that. I do not owe you that truth."

"Fine," Leon said. "You don't owe me anything. You don't owe Chris anything. This isn't about _owing_ people. I still wanna stay. So does he." Chris nodded frantically.

D whipped his head around to stare at Leon, his eyes huge. "You are mad," he snapped. "To throw your lot in with, with _this,_ when -- when you don't even know -- " He waved a shaking hand at the marsh.

"Okay, I'm crazy, I got it," Leon said, reaching out to take his hand. D pulled away before he could touch him. He looked cornered. That wasn't good. Leon tried to think of something soothing to say, to defuse the moment, like you would when some lunatic had an Uzi pointed at a crowded room.

But he didn't come up with anything before D said, "Very well. I shall show you one last room." This time his smile was small, bitter, and triumphant. "Perhaps I have erred on the side of caution. You understand deserts, Detective. You understand beaches. You recognize all the animals you have seen so far, even if you did not expect to see any of them in this particular location. I am certain you will not understand this."

"Try me," Leon said, knowing it was a damn stupid thing to say, but bracing himself all the same.

"Oh, I will," D said, looking meaner than ever. "Chris, let's introduce Leon to one more of your friends. The rest of you," he said, turning to the entourage of animals that had been dogging their heels the whole time, "should go now." Again, like they understood every word, the animals scattered, and left the room, unless they already lived in the marsh. Even Pon-chan skittered out the door, glancing one last time at Chris over her bushy tail before she disappeared. Only Q-chan remained hovering. Then D turned to Chris. "Very well, then. Chris, can you show us to Honlon's room, please?"

Chris looked like he was about to burst into tears. Seeing that, D's bitter-cruel smirk went away, and he bit his lip. "Ohyou are tired, of course," he said, his voice gentling. "You should have been in bed hours ago. Forgive me for not thinking of it."

_No!_ Chris shook his head rapidly. _No, I'll show Leon to Honlon! Just don't make us leave!_

D gave Leon a really vicious glare then, like that was somehow his fault. Leon shrugged. He was tired, too, and apprehensive, and not above emotional blackmail, if it worked. He was also thinking maybe he should have just dragged D into bed tonight, after all. It would have been a lot less complicated, he was sure, and wouldn't have involved him getting mosquito bites. Better yet, he should have just gotten D stoned on chocolate as soon as he got through the door, then dragged him to City Hall and married him before he came to his senses. Hindsight being what it was.

Too late for that now, though. "Fine," he said. "Show me Honlon. Whatever that is. A volcano or something?"

_Honlon's a girl,_ Chris said, and then looked confused. _I think. Count, what animal is she supposed to be?_

"Let's permit Mr. Detective to find out for himself," D said. Leon could tell he was keeping his voice calm for Chris's sake. He patted Chris on the shoulder and led the way out of the marshy room. Leon followed him, turned left, and all of a sudden, the hallway ended. There was only one set of doors left. They were huge. Looked like they went up for twenty feet, and they were covered with brass carvings of Chinese dragons.

"Hold it," Leon said, stopping in his tracks. "This corridor kept going. Earlier. I know it did."

"You are certain of so many things," D said. He was trying to sound disdainful, but Leon could see that his hands were shaking, like this whole night was getting to him way more than he wanted to admit. "But you should never assume you understand how this world works, Detective. Never."

Before Leon could yell at him, he pressed lightly against the doors. And the doors -- which looked like they were made of wood two feet thick, and brass, and had to weigh about a thousand pounds each -- swung open without a creak. D stood by them, letting Leon and Chris precede him inside.

"As it happens, Detective," he murmured as Leon passed by him, "you have already met Honlon, briefly. In factyou are quite important to her."

Did he think he was being cute when he got all cryptic? Leon thought of about fifteen smartass things to say, but then his eyes started adjusting to the gloom, and the words died in his throat. If the doors were huge, the room itself was cavernous -- ceilings and floors and walls without end and pillars carved out of jade and marble.

Well, it'd have to be big. There was a fucking enormous dragon sitting in the middle of it.

A dragon. With three heads.

_'You have already met Honlon, briefly. In fact, you are quite important to her.'_

"The dragon," he said numbly, pointing at the thing, which looked like it was asleep. And just starting to wake up, judging by the way the middle head was fluttering its eyelids. "The dragon from Christmas Eve."

"Very astute," D said, coming up behind him.

"I thoughtI thought" That he'd dreamed the whole episode, or been doped up by D, or it had been a lightshow, or something. Anything but that he'd actually thrown a real, live dragon into the Pacific Ocean. Wait a second -- "I pitched that damn thing into the sea! What the hell's it doing here?"

"'That damn thing,'" D said dryly, "found her way home to her parents. Well. To one of her parents, I should say." That reminded Leon of something else D had said on that crazy night. That Leon had helped "give birth" to the thing. '_I am its father, and Leon, you are its mother.'_ Oh, fucking hell.

Now all three heads had their eyes wide open, and they began to rear up into the air. Leon reached out, grabbed Chris, and dragged him close to his body, like he thought he could shield him worth a damn from a monster the size of a house. To his humiliation, he realized he'd stepped protectively in front of D, too.

_No, Leon, Honlon's my friend,_ Chris protested. _Shedid you say she looks like a dragon, to you?_

"Yeah," Leon said, his mouth dry, his heart hammering away. "She's a dragon. Definitely dragon-shaped, over there. Holy fuck"

The dragon's heads were all watching him closely, now. The one on the left had deep, shadowy eyes that changed colors subtly, like seawater. The one on the right had catlike pupils that somehow looked really angry about something. And the one in the middle looked like her eyes were all pupil and no iris. Just big, inky, and black.

Chris waved at them. Leon's little brother waved at a dragon. _Hi!_ he said. _How are you?_

All of the heads were silent for a second, before the one on the left spoke. Her voice seemed to rumble right up out of the earth's core, and shook the ground beneath Leon's feet. "We are well, Chris," she said, though all of the heads were keeping their multicolored eyes on Leon. "Though we were dreamingdreaming of many things. And yourself?"

"I see your moronic brother finally showed up," the head on the right spat. "Finally taking an interest in your kid, huh, deadbeat?"

Leon's jaw dropped. To his surprise, D stepped up next to him. "Now, be fair, Kanan," he said soothingly. "Mr. Detective did not know you were here until tonight."

_Is it true you're a dragon, Shuko?_ Chris asked the head on the left, sounding eager. _I wish I could see._

"You can," 'Shuko' replied, "when you learn how to open your eyes." Chris wilted. Leon couldn't blame him. It sounded like the sort of stupid, unhelpful advice D gave all the time.

"It's been almost a week since you came to visit, Chris," the middle head said, in a little, shy voice. Well, 'little' compared to the other two anyway. It sounded almost girlish.

_I'm sorry,_ Chris said, perking up again. _Have you been lonely?_

"Before we continue," D interrupted, "I think introductions are in order, don't you? Much less confusing for all involved. The head on the left is called Shuko; the one in the middle is Junrei; and the one on the right is Kanan."

_And Shuko is the Count, and Kanan is you, and Junrei is a little kid,_ Chris added excitedly.

Leon jerked his head down to stare at him. "What? Who's me? What?"

D cleared his throat, and looked uncomfortable again. "Christopher ismostly correct. Do you remember, that Christmas, when I told you that the dragon would take on the characteristics of the last person to hold it?"

"Yeah," Leon said slowly, looking up at hishis "kid," again. "So -- so the one on the right is like me. Kanan." 'Kanan' glared at him, and snorted a plume of smoke from her nostrils.

_And Shuko's like the Count,_ Chris repeated. _She's responsible._

"Whatever," Kanan muttered.

"I gotta sit down," Leon said, and sat on his ass on the marble floor.

"Kanan is uncouth, but she has a point," Shuko said, her voice mild. "Why have you brought Christopher's brother here, Count, on this night?"

D looked surprised, as if he hadn't been expecting to be questioned. He clasped his hands together. "I forgot," he murmured, "that you would not hear my announcement from this room. It is a special room," he added confidingly to Chris. "Honlon is not necessarily subject to the laws binding the other creatures of the shop."

"Honlon would like a damn answer to her question," Kanan said.

D glared up at her. "Oh, Kanan," Junrei said in a quivering voice. "Please don't be mean to the Count."

"It's all right, Junrei," D said tightly. "I will answer Shuko's question. I brought Detective Orcot here because tonight he asked to marry me."

The dragon regarded D in silence for a moment. Then, Shuko asked politely, "And?"

D looked flummoxed. Now that he'd accepted that there was a honking big dragon in front of him, Leon felt himself starting to get calm enough where he could take an interest in the conversation, which all of a sudden seemed to be going in a direction D hadn't expected. That had to be a good thing. "I'm not sure what you mean, Shuko," D said.

"Do you mean you said yes?" Junrei asked, sounding breathless and delighted.

"No!" D snapped. "I did not."

Chris looked suddenly heartbroken. So did Junrei, whose head drooped on its long neck. "What?" Kanan demanded. "So why'd you drag him here? Do you want us to eat him for you?" she added, sounding more interested.

Leon suddenly had a lot more sympathy for his former perp, because he just about pissed himself, then. _No!_ Chris cried out. _Junrei, Shuko, don't let her!_

D quickly stepped between the dragon and Leon and Chris. "I certainly do not want you to eat him, Kanan," he said firmly.

"Neither do I," Shuko said. "Kanan, please remember that we have three heads, but only one stomach."

"Fine," Kanan snapped. "Still doesn't tell us what he's doing here."

"I'm glad to meet him," Junrei said shyly. "We've heard a lot about you, Mr. Detective," she added, which marked the first time one of the heads had spoken directly to Leon.

"Ahh, huh," Leon replied. The three heads regarded him silently. Had to do better than that. This was a damn dragon, thinking about eating him, and apparently also one of the shop's top animals. Even D couldn't boss it around. "Sorry. Uh. Nice to meet you too." They kept on staring. Leon decided it would be even more polite to clamber to his feet and dust off his pants, even though the floor was immaculate. "I'm, I'm a little, little shocked."

"Understandable," Shuko said mildly, but beneath it, he thought she was laughing at him. Definitely took after D, then. Then she looked at D, and said, "Well, Count?"

"He waspersistent," D admitted, sounding reluctant. More than that, sounding uncertain. "He would listen to none of my objections to our compatibility. I soon realized that showing him the shop would force him to accept that what he longed for was merely an illusion."

"Like fuck," Leon snapped before he could stop himself, and everybody turned to stare at him. He went red and didn't know where to look.

"Why didn't you just say no and pitch him out of the shop?" demanded Kanan. "He can't come into this place if you don't allow him in. Nobody can."

"I--" This definitely wasn't going the way D had planned. _Now_ Leon knew where to look. He didn't take his eyes off D's face. "As I said, the detective would not take no for an answer"

"You never said no," Leon growled.

Everybody turned to look at him again, including D, whose eyes widened. "Well, he didn't," Leon said, appealing up to the dragon. "Did you?" Back to D. "You said I was crazy, you said it was a bad idea, you said you weren't human, but you never said _no."_

"I should not _have_ to say no to that which is _impossible,"_ D said through his teeth. "Really, Detective, do you actually intend to persist in your suit? You are the most obstinate, willfully blind -- "

"Why is it impossible?" Leon exploded. He pointed a shaking finger at Honlon. "That fucking dragon is impossible! This whole shop is impossible! Fucking _hell,_ D! What are you telling me? That I can have a goddamn _dragon_ for a kid, but I can't have _you_ for a wifor a" D's eyes widened again, his nostrils flared in outrage, and Leon had to think fast. "For a person to be married to!"

"He has a point, doesn't he, Count?" Shuko inquired which, thank God, dragged D's attention back to her. "It is not at all unknown for spirits and gods to take humans as consorts. Unless, of course, you truly are unwilling?" Her voice trailed off with the obvious question.

"I am surprised at you, Shuko," D said, turning pink and not answering it. "Surprised and disappointed, I confess. You, more than any other creature in this shop, should understand my objections to humans. My race -- my people -- "

"Your people are only three in number," Shuko said. Leon started. Three? Whatever D was, there were only two others like him? "Perhaps you could learn a lesson from the humans in survival."

D looked as stunned as he had when Leon had proposed. "Shuko!" From somewhere above Leon's head, Q-chan gave an indignant squeak.

"She's right," Kanan said. "What? You wanted a pat on the head for turning down the best opportunity any of you has had in centuries?" Leon raised his eyebrows and decided he could forgive her for wanting to eat him, if she kept talking like that. Maybe.

"We were dreaming about King Gidora," Junrei put in then, and for a second Leon wondered if he'd heard right, because, in the middle of a conversation that didn't make much sense, that hadn't made _any_ sense.

"King Gidora?" D asked faintly. "What about him?"

"Who the hell's King Gidora?" Leon demanded. "Isn't he one of the Godzilla monsters or something?"

"The Dragon King of the Southern Sea," Junrei said helpfully. "Our lord and master. He lives far beneath the ocean in a magnificent palace. He is great, powerful, and wise."

"Sometimes he communicates with us through dreams," Shuko said, still looking at D. "And tells us things we need to know."

"S-such as?" D asked.

"Count, you have raised us since egghood," Shuko said. "You have been our friend and protector all our lives. We owe a great debt to you. It is in our interest -- in the interest of all animals, magical and mundane -- that your species should survive."

"We have been surviving," D said.

"But not well," Shuko said. "And precariously. And for no real purpose."

"Oh, Shuko, that's mean," Junrei whispered.

"My family's _purpose,"_ D said, his voice low and shaking with repressed anger, "as you very well know, is revenge. Revenge upon the humans who -- "

"But you stink at it," Kanan interrupted. "You want real revenge? Let me loose on the city. In two hours I can -- "

"He does not want real revenge," Shuko said serenely, "and that is why he will do no such thing." Her head leaned forward, swaying gracefully, until she was almost nose-to-nose with D. D didn't even flinch, although he did glare.

Leon's head was swimming as he tried to work out the remarks about 'revenge' and stuff, but he did manage to listen, as Shuko said, "You have followed your grandfather's edicts without faith or reflection for too long, Count D."

"What?" D whispered, still glaring, but looking less obstinate. Leon had another gut-feeling then, one of those flashes of insight that were never wrong: Shuko was taking up the slack where Leon had left off, convincing D of something he already wanted to do. He had to trust that she knew what the hell she was doing, because he'd lost track of events at least two hours ago.

"King Gidora has spoken, urging us to act in your best interests. To persuade you to act in them," Shuko said. "We must obey our king. We see that he is right. I share your strengths and your weaknesses, Count -- you taught me to believe a very wrong thing, that humans could not live in this shop. But my lord has explained everything to us, and" she swayed her head back towards the rest of her body, "my sisters have persuaded me as well."

"Ooh, wow," Kanan said. "That's a first."

D crossed his arms over his chest, darted a glance at Leon, then quickly looked back. He twitched. "Are you seriously suggesting," he began.

"An alliance with humans is your species' best hope for survival," Shuko said, and drew her head back again, so that it was more lined up with the other two. "That is all."

"Hold it."

Leon surprised himself, and everybody else, by speaking then. "Hold it," he repeated, looking at D as he worked out what was bugging him in his head.

"Yes?" D asked coolly, though Leon could tell he'd been badly shaken by what Shuko had said.

"I don't have a clue what the hell you guys are talking about," Leon said. "But me -- Chris and me -- we ain't just 'humans.' We're not just things. I'm not some damn farm animal out to stud, and I'm not just here to 'preserve your species.' Whatever the fuck that is." D frowned, opened his mouth, and then closed it again. "I said it before, I'll say it again," Leon said. "It's about you, D. That's who I wanna marry. And you better wanna marry _me,_ not just some 'human.'"

"You -- " D began. "You're still insisting -- ?"

"Oh my God," Leon shouted, "are you deaf or stupid or something?" He waved his arms wildly and kept talking before D or anybody else could get a word in. "This is some kind of magic animal shelter? Fine. Okay. I can handle that. I've seen enough weird shit around here. I got a dragon for a daughter? So what? Is that the best you got?" He glared up at the dragon, just daring it to say something smart-assed. For once, it was silent.

"There" D trailed off, swallowing hard. "There is still so much you don't know."

"So tell me," Leon said. "Fucking promise me you won't run off, and then tell me. We don't gotta get married right this second." Which they probably shouldn't, anyway, because his brain was telling him that he was going to need a lot more information about this not-being-human-thing.

"My family," D said, looking bleak, and shaking his head. "My father. Worse, my grandfatherthey would never condone"

"Holy fuck, D!" Leon bellowed, feeling like his voice came up through the floor just like the dragon's. "So what? I haven't seen hide nor hair of your grandpa in two fucking years! You gonna let that change your mind? Don't you get it? This is _it._ This is our _life,_ D, and it's not gonna last forever -- " At least, Leon's wasn't, and now that he thought about it, he didn't know about D, but they could talk about that later, " -- weird shit or not, this is the big one, the big time, the only chance we _get!" _

"Leon," D said, and quickly altered it to, "Mr. Detective" but Leon could see him wavering.

He stepped forward. Close enough to D to smell that trace of perfume. He whispered, "You know what you never said? That you don't want to. That you don't give a shit about me. You never said any of that." Right then, the longing in D's eyes was so naked that Leon forgot about humans and dragons and grandfathers and everything else, for just a second or two. "So, come on. You showed me all this shit. I'm still here. Like I said I'd be."

"" D whispered, the only word his voice could hold on to.

"Just tell me something, okay," Leon said, dropping his voice low so that anybody else would have to strain to hear him. "Do you _want_ to say yes?"

D looked trapped, lost, scared. All that. Leon still didn't let up.

"Come on. Yes or no. This is just me you're talking to here, this is just you and me. Would you say yes if it wasn't for your family? _Would you?"_

D looked beseechingly into Leon's eyes, like he was trying to find some answer in them that would get him out of this. Leon looked right back, and reached forward, and took D by the arms. At the touch of his hands, D shuddered, and his eyes fluttered shut. He made a soft, breathless noise. Leon didn't realize it was meant to be a word until D said it again, a second later, a fraction louder.

"Yes."

All of a sudden, Leon could breathe again. "Sothat's something," he said, hearing his voice shake. His palms were sweating and probably messing up D's silky sleeves. He still couldn't let go. He couldn't believe D had admitted it, either. "Iwe can work with that, right? If -- "

D reached out then, and grabbed Leon by his forearms so they were holding on to each other. He kept staring at Leon's chest as he said, with difficulty, "Detective. I said yes."

"I know you said -- " Leon started, and then stopped, as his brain went 'ping.' "Uh"

"Yes," D repeated, more loudly, his body starting to shake like it was in a strong wind. "If -- once we have discussed -- if you still wish -- this madness -- " He sagged forward, and rested his head against Leon's chest. He had to be able to feel Leon's heart pounding at a mile a minute in there. And then he whispered, so quietly that nobody but Leon could hear, "I cannotyou must be the one to end this, now. I cannot. I concede." A shudder ran through his body, and then into Leon's and down into the ground, like lightning. "I am yours."

Just like that. He'd said yes, just like that. Leon realized his hands were squeezing D's arms tight enough to crack the bones of an ordinary person. He couldn't think of a goddamn thing to say in response. But for the first time since starting the tour, this didn't feel like a dream. D under his hands felt real. Warmly, amazingly real. "I," he croaked, "you -- "

"Gosh, I love a happy ending," Kanan said, and they both turned to look up at her. Shuko and Junrei were silently watching her, as well. "So, the wedding's on?"

It took Leon a second to say, "L-l-looks that way." Chris gasped and clapped his hands over his mouth, his eyes starting to shine with happiness for the first time all night.

"If Mr. Orcot does not change his mind," D whispered, still clutching and being clutched by Leon. "If my grandfather does not learn of this and interfere. If -- "

"Then quick -- let me give you your first gift," Kanan interrupted. "Protection from your grandfather. For the rest of your lives."

"What do you -- " D began, but then, right before their eyes, Kanan's neck cracked forward like a whip, and Leon saw about two seconds' worth of three-inch long razor-sharp teeth rending the air right before her jaws closed down on Q-chan with a snap and a squeak. Then she threw her head back, the shining column of her throat rippling in the low light as she swallowed.

"Q-chan!" D shrieked right in Leon's ear, and his fists curled into Leon's shirt, tearing it with his long nails. Before he knew it, Leon had yanked Chris behind him again, and kept one arm wrapped tight around D's shoulder as he yelled, "What the fuck? You ate his pet, you ate his goddamn _pet?"_ He looked down at D, expecting him to add his two cents too, but D's face was whiter than it had been all evening -- that was saying something, considering -- and he was swaying. Leon wondered if he might actually faint.

"What the hell was that about?" he roared, not caring if it was a stupid idea to yell at something as big as a house and with teeth to match. "I thought you said you wanted us to do this!"

_Shuko!_ Chris called desperately. _Shuko, make Kanan give Q-chan back!_

"I cannot," Shuko said. "And if you knew what we know, you would not ask us to do such a thing."

"It really was a gift," Junrei piped up. "Although we're sorry, Count, really, we didn't want to upset you"

_"I'm_ not sorry," Kanan said.

"Q-chan," D whispered. Leon couldn't see his face anymore, since the side of his head was pressed to Leon's chest for support, but he sounded ghastly. He did manage to uncurl one hand from Leon's shirt, though, and raised it shakily towards the dragon before letting it fall limply down again. "Ifhow could you? If you disapproveto take it out on an innocent creaturewhy not simply" For real, Leon thought. He'd never liked Q-chan, and he knew that had been mutual, but the little batbunny had always been real good about looking out for D. And D had been nuts about it, too.

"We do not disapprove," Shuko said. "As I just explained, if you wish to pursue this union, you have our support, and that of King Gidora. To such an extent that we are willing to shield you from the consequences of your grandfather's considerable anger."

Chris was crying again, and hiding his face in Leon's side. D was still slack in shock. "I don't understand," he pleaded.

"Your little pal was no real pal," Kanan said. "He was -- "

" -- a spy," Shuko interjected smoothly. "He reported your every move to your grandfather. Undoubtedly fond of you in his own way, but your interests never came first. He would have betrayed and destroyed you for this, even though you are acting for the best, and all because of your grandfather's inflexibility."

"We've known for a long time," Junrei added. "Kanan figured it out first. But we thought maybe we better not say anything, until we dreamed of King Gidora."

"Bwuh?" Leon said, which wasn't all that helpful. Chris sniffled, pulled away from Leon and wiped his eyes, looking confused.

"A spy?" D asked weakly.

Shuko's eyes were fathomless and full of stuff she wasn't saying. Leon wondered if he was the only one who could see that. "He knew nothing that your grandfather did not also know."

"Oh," was all D could say.

"But wait a minute," Leon said, patting Chris's head with one hand and keeping a firm grip on D with the other, "won't Grandpa notice he's missing? How is eating the bunny gonna keep us safe?"

"We have promised you protection," Shuko said, sounding irritable for the first time. Her eyes were boring into Leon now, telling him clear as day: _Don't ask questions._ "I tell you that you will be safe from Count D's grandfather forever, and I will thank you to take my word for it. He will not trouble you."

Kanan burped.

"Was your pet so dear to you, Count," Shuko added, looking at D again, "that you would sacrifice both your mate and your child to have him?"

"I" D swallowed hard. Then he closed his eyes. "No." Huh. Leon could tell he was hurting -- in the space of two minutes he'd lost a pet, and then found out the pet hadn't even been his friend, which had to suck -- but at least he had his damn priorities straight. That was a first.

D took a deep breath, and looked like he was trying to calm down. "Tell me something else," he said, and Leon knew he didn't want to think anymore about Q-chan right this second, "because, I confess, the timing of all this seems extraordinary to me. How did King Gidora know of ourcircumstances?" He glanced up at Leon, and then back at Honlon. "How did he know to send you three a dream?"

"There was powerful magic in the banner you wove, Count," Junrei said softly.

D's jaw dropped.

"Well, what'd you expect? You spent all night and day on it," Kanan added.

D squeaked.

Leon felt an enormous grin starting to stretch his face. He glanced down at D. "All night and day, huh?" D glared fiercely at him, and his cheeks bloomed red. Bright red.

"You are tired," Shuko said, "and so are we. You interrupted our slumber. And poor Chris is dead on his feet" Leon and D looked at Chris, who shook his head and tried gamely to appear alert, but his eyes were red, and he looked about ready to drop.

"Yes," D said, trying hard to sound normal. "Yes. Now is the time for rest. We willDetective Orcot and I will discuss these matters further in the morning."

"Do so," Shuko said and, Leon could have sworn, smiled. If dragons could smile. "A new future lies before you, Count D, and for the first time in generations, it has hope in it. Consider well."

D just nodded, looking like he was finally all talked out. Leon wondered what time it was. He'd lost all sense of it. It was probably morning already. And he was supposed to be at work today, but right now, he didn't give a damn, because some things were more important than punching the clock.

They staggered down the hall, all three of them, with the animals all peering out from behind an infinite succession of doorways. D shooed Chris through one door, where the raccoon rushed out to greet him and tug him inside, and then rested his hand against another door across the hall. He turned to face Leon. The blush had finally died down. "Are youwould you"

"I'm staying," Leon said. He still couldn't quite believe that if he left now, D wouldn't up and fly away, or do whatever it was he did to 'move the shop.' Nothing could surprise him, after tonight. He followed D into a bedroom that looked fit for an ancient emperor, with a bed that was almost the size of Leon's apartment. "Holy" He glanced at D. "I'm marrying up, huh?"

D didn't rise to the bait. Instead, even though he had to be exhausted, he looked sort of shy. "That remains to be seen, does it not?" he murmured. "We have much to talk about."

"God." Leon's shoulders slumped just thinking about it. "Later?"

"Later," D agreed, and looked at the bed again. His cheeks went pink.

"No funny stuff," Leon said, saving them both the embarrassment. "I'm fucking bushed."

D's blush went away, replaced by a haughty glare. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

"Great." Leon flopped down on the bed, yanked his shoes off, and tossed his jacket to the side. D vanished behind an elaborate lattice-work screen in the corner of the room, and Leon heard the swish of silk being traded for more silk. He wondered why the hell you needed a screen like that if you were usually the only person in your bedroom, and then he wondered something else.

He scooted back until he lay down among the many plush pillows, feeling himself go boneless against the perfect mattress. God. He could get used to this. He fought to keep from falling asleep instantly. "D," he called out, hesitantly. "UhI was wondering"

D emerged from behind the screen, dressed in a pale blue sleep-robe that didn't look all that different from the dress he'd just changed out of. He didn't look so hot -- his eyes were haunted with confusion and sorrow, and his mouth didn't have the usual sly curve to it.

Leon still ached, looking at him. Good thing he really was wiped.

"Yes?" D asked, gliding towards the bed, and lying down stiffly on the half that Leon wasn't occupying. Leon hoped they slept well together. It was always weird, sharing a bed with somebody else when you were used to sleeping alone. He hoped D wasn't a kicker.

Leon looked up at the ceiling, because he wasn't sure he could look D in the eye for this one. "You, uh" he swallowed hard. "You said you didn't like humans."

"Correct," D said tightly. "But surely that can wait until morni -- "

"So does that mean," Leon continued doggedly, "I mean, you know -- have you ever -- " He finally looked at D, gestured at the space between their bodies on the bed. "With a human? Or with anybody?"

It was D's turn to stare up at the ceiling, clasping his hands together across his middle protectively. "Certainly not," he said, his voice clipped and defensive. "Why should I have? It was not necessary."

Leon rolled his eyes, and without further ado, reached out and hauled D into his arms. D gasped and went rigid. 'Not necessary'? Jesus. But later. "I said no funny stuff," Leon grunted. "Just go to sleep."

He closed his eyes deliberately and tried to make his breathing even out. After a second, D relaxed a fraction, and then a fraction more. After five seconds, he even rested his cheek on Leon's shoulder.

"Good night, Detective," he whispered, his breath fanning softly against Leon's ear.

Leon tried to say goodnight too, but suspected it only came out as another grunt before he fell fast asleep.

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

For warnings, disclaimers, etc., see Chapter One.

* * *

_Chapter Six_

When Leon woke up, he felt hot and trapped. He figured out quickly that this was because somebody was lying wrapped around him. Soft hair tickled his nose. It smelled good. He had an arm around her shoulders. She was wearing silk. Nice. Now who was she, again? What had he been up to last night?

Then he remembered. Oh yeah, D. And proposing. They were in bed, so had D said yes? No. Well, yes, eventually, but only after…tour…and rooms…and dragon…and Q-chan.

Leon squeezed his eyes shut again and fought to keep from groaning. Not just a weird dream, then. He felt as rough as if he had a hangover, after a night like that. What time had they even gone to bed? What time was it now?

There was a timid rapping at the door. Leon blinked, and then realized that was what had woken him up in the first place, a few seconds ago. He glanced down at D, who was still curled up at his side, his head on Leon's chest. Well…at least he didn't kick. Or snore. And smelled nice, and fit right. Leon couldn't remember the last time he'd _slept_ with somebody -- either it was wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, or he'd lie awake while the girl he'd gone home with would sleep.

Leon held his breath and eased out from under D as quietly as he could. He had limited experience with waking D up, but judging by the black eye the guy had given him the last time, it wasn't a good idea. Fuck, that whole day had been a nightmare, hadn't it? Starting out with D giving him a shiner for no reason, and going on to an even worse place, a place where Leon had been scared to death that by nightfall he wouldn't have a brother or a…or a…

More knocking at the door. Leon growled under his breath as he made it to the edge of the bed, and suppressed the urge to yell at the door, because that would kind of defeat the purpose of getting up quietly. Luckily, D hadn't stirred. Leon looked down at him as he rose from the bed. D even slept pretty. He didn't look disturbed, like he had that other time; wasn't twitching or whimpering, like he was having a nightmare. Just dead to the world, this morning. (Morning?) Leon guessed, after yesterday, he needed the rest, too.

He tiptoed to the door and opened it. Chris. With the raccoon and the goat-tiger at his side, like always.

"Hey," Leon whispered, stepping into the hall and closing the door to a crack behind him. His voice sounded hoarse and gravelly after all the yelling he'd done last night. "What's up?"

_Your phone was ringing,_ Chris said, sounding like he was whispering too, even though he wasn't talking out loud. He held it up. _You left it in the front room._

Shit. Leon checked the log. Sure enough, three missed calls from work. The time on the LED display told him that it was well past noon. Damn it, his sense of time was fucked beyond repair now.

"Hold on a second, buddy," he told Chris, and quickly hit the speed-dial for the station. A few moments later, he was connected to a very angry Chief of Police.

"Leon, where the hell -- "

"Sorry, Chief," Leon said, wanting to keep this brief. "I've been asleep. Didn't mean to skip out. I feel like shit. I think I need a sick day."

A moment of surprised silence. Leon couldn't even remember the last time he'd taken a sick day. "You sound like shit," the chief acknowledged. "And that better not be because of a damn hangover, either."

"I always come in when I have a hangover," Leon snapped.

"I guess you do," the chief sighed. Like he could deny that, when he spent half the time complaining about Leon's crappy mood. "Fuck, Orcot, I'm short-staffed as it is. But I guess we'll manage."

"Yeah. Sorry," Leon said again. "Uh…I might need tomorrow off too. Depends on how I feel."

"Fine," the chief said. "I guess you're due. I'll tell Jill. She'll probably wanna stop by and mother you."

"No, that's okay," Leon said quickly. "I mean, I'm…" Aw, fuck. "Not at my apartment anyway."

Another moment of silence. "Let me guess," the chief said.

"Yeah. It was…can I explain later? I really do feel -- "

" -- like shit. Fine. You got a nursemaid. Lucky you. Get some sleep and call me when you know if you're coming in tomorrow." The chief hung up.

Leon sighed and gave the phone back to Chris, who gave him an odd look in return. "How _you_ feeling today?" he asked.

_Okay. I just got up. We made lunch._ It was plainly an offer, but Leon wasn't quite up to thinking about food yet. He shrugged. _Where's the Count?_ Chris asked timidly.

"Still sleeping, last I checked. Think I'll go back and check on him." Leon did his best to give Chris a parenting look. "If you're okay."

_Is he going to leave? Or are -- are you going to marry him?_ Chris asked, even more timidly. _All the…the animals…keep asking me._

"Nobody's leaving." As far as Leon knew, and he'd do whatever it took to keep it that way. "Hope I'm gonna marry him. You okay with _that?"_ Maybe it had been a bad idea to wait to tell Chris until after it had been announced. But hell, what was the alternative? In spite of his determination, Leon had known D would resist, had known there would be a fight. It had seemed kinder to spare Chris the worry about that, at least. Better to keep it under wraps until everything was decided.

_I guess,_ Chris said, and made a face. _It's weird._

Leon felt his stomach knot up. He'd just about fooled himself that he could give the world a big fuck-you about the gay thing. But he didn't think he could stand being called 'weird' by his own brother. "Listen, Chris," he said awkwardly. "I mean…I know I've always gone for women…but…"

_Yeah, and you're trying to arrest him, you always say,_ Chris said. _But this means you like him now?_ he added hopefully.

Hmm. So, okay, maybe that meant Chris wasn't really…Leon didn't know what that meant. "I like him pretty good," Leon said. "Most of the time." He had to say it again. "You'll understand when you're older."

Chris glared.

"Right," Leon said. "Go eat lunch." He ruffled the kid's hair to show there were no hard feelings, and watched him scamper off down the hallway, furry pals in tow, before returning to D's room and closing the door.

D was still asleep, but he'd rolled into the warm spot Leon had left. In spite of everything, Leon got a goofy smile on his face. But he needed to take a leak, and probably wash his mouth out, since it tasted kinda foul. Wash his face. Do something to feel human again, even if D didn't like humans.

_Not human._ Leon tried to ignore the chilly shudder that rolled down his spine. Because now that somebody had said it out loud? It wasn't all that big of a surprise.

There was a door in the far right corner of the room. Hopefully it was a bathroom. Leon made sure to keep quiet as he crossed the floor, and opened the door. Yeah, it was a bathroom--almost as large as the bedroom, with a marble tub that looked big enough to float a battleship and a sink big enough to drown somebody in. Plus a huge cabinet made of lacquered wood. Curious, Leon opened it up, and saw row upon row of enormous, fluffy towels, little pots and jars made out of porcelain and gold, and a little closet just for ridiculously expensive-looking bathrobes. Silk, of course. Good God, the guy must have magic money, too…

No toilet anywhere in sight. Well, if D wasn't human, maybe he didn't have to…but somebody around here did, guaranteed. Chris for sure, at least. Feeling less indulgent than he had a few minutes ago, now that he'd had time to get jealous of D's money and really had to pee, Leon stalked back out into the bedroom.

He took D by the shoulder and shook him, but it was still gentle. "Yo. Sleeping beauty." Then he pulled back quick, just in case D got any funny ideas about lashing out in his sleep.

But D didn't lash out. Instead he twitched, made a soft noise, and opened his eyes, slowly. As dramatic as if he was in a movie. His lashes lifted up like curtains over those amazing eyes. Leon forgot about being annoyed. Forgot everything, especially when D's pretty lips pursed, and he made a gentle "Mmm?" sound.

And he'd been planning to leave. Forever…

"Toilet," Leon blurted.

D closed his eyes again and gestured vaguely at the door in the corner.

"No. I mean, I need a _toilet,"_ Leon said, feeling the annoyance come back.

"One in there," D muttered, sounding like he was getting ready to be waspish as well. He'd never been a morning person. Leon rolled his eyes and stormed back into the bathroom, ready to yell from there that D had been wrong, and not caring if he woke the bastard up for real.

There was a toilet sitting in one corner of the room. Made out of marble. Matched the décor perfectly. Leon was pretty damn sure it hadn't been there ten seconds ago.

He rubbed his eyes, shook his head again, and took a leak without asking any questions. The gilt mirror over the sink told him he looked as shit as he must have sounded over the phone: messy hair, bags under his eyes, and stubble that looked ready to take on a life of its own. His nice clothes were creased. And of course, out there, D had looked as pure and fresh as a daisy.

Leon rolled his eyes and rinsed his mouth out with water from the sink. He poked around in another, smaller cabinet, and to his surprise, lighted on a razor almost immediately. Did D shave? Even though he'd never seen the guy with so much as the whisper of a beard or moustache, Leon couldn't quite picture it. And…that toilet…maybe the bathroom was able to provide whatever you needed, whenever you needed it. Or D could make it do that. After all he'd seen last night, who was to say otherwise?

Leon ignored the returning chill, grabbed a nearby can of shaving cream, and spruced himself up as best he could. He wanted a shower, but his gut was telling him that it would be better to get back out there before D had a chance to really wake up. So he combed his fingers through his hair and headed back into the bedroom.

D was starting to stir, now. He was still curled up in the warm spot, but his eyes were open, and he was looking sleepily around the room. His eyes widened when he spotted Leon heading for the bed. Maybe he'd been wondering if it had all been a dream, too. _No such luck, baby._

Leon flopped down beside D on the bed again, making the mattress bounce and jostle. Then he reached out and pulled D into his arms again before D could get pissy about it. Mmm, nice. D lay warm and pliant against him, looking sleepy and bemused.

Leon thought about kissing him. Wished he had the nerve, and then got mad at himself because he didn't, and did it anyway before he could change his mind. D stiffened and gasped; didn't pull away, but didn't kiss back, either. He just sort of lay there and took it, and gave Leon a stricken expression when they parted. But he'd curled one hand into the front of Leon's shirt.

"You sleep okay?" Leon asked, because he couldn't think of anything else.

D shook his head. Pressed his lips together, and when he unpressed him, they were shiny and moist. Leon gulped. "I remained awake long after you fell asleep," D murmured.

That surprised Leon. D had looked exhausted last night, or at least, as close as he ever came to it. "How come?"

D just stared at him like Leon hadn't even asked, still with that blank, surprised look on his face. Then he got a tiny crease in his forehead, like he was trying to decide something. Finally, just when Leon was starting to get impatient, he said, "I was thinking."

Any other day, Leon would have rolled his eyes and said, _No shit._ But today wasn't like any other day, and he realized that something was happening here that had never happened before. D was getting ready to talk to him. About something personal. Something that mattered. So he just asked, "About what?"

D moistened his lips again. Leon wished he wouldn't, since it was kind of distracting. "Many things," he said, still sounding hesitant. This obviously didn't come naturally to him. "About last night, of course. And…and the many things we have yet to discuss…and Q-chan…" his voice sank a little on the last few words.

Now that D was talking to him, Leon quickly realized that he had no idea what he was supposed to say back. It was easier the other way around. D always knew how to listen, and always knew just what to say, at just the right time. When he wanted to. Leon had never been any good at that, unless he was interrogating a suspect, and that wasn't the mood he wanted to set right now. "You, uh, you okay?" he asked awkwardly, hoping that was all right.

"I suppose," D said. His forehead crinkled again, but now he seemed to be looking inward. "I am grieved at his loss," he said, "naturally, but also…what Honlon said, about…"

"Him being a spy?"

"Quite," D agreed. "It is not so unthinkable, I suppose. Q-chan was, in fact, a gift from my grandfather. He arrived at the shop shortly after Grandfather left it in my hands. His letter told me Q-chan would be a 'companion' for me in my solitude." D's voice trailed off. He had a combination of emotions on his face, none of them good: loss, anger, hurt, shame. Leon watched it all, fascinated. He'd seen D do mysterious, arrogant, enraged, sugar high, flirtatious, all that, but never anything even remotely like this. Remotely vulnerable. It left him feeling like he needed air.

"He was a companion," D continued after a moment. "For these past two years he has never left my side. He seemed to have the most uncanny gift of _listening._ I…I confided in him. Everything." His cheeks turned pink, and humiliation took over all the other feelings on his face. "Even -- "

"Even what?" Leon asked, hoping it was something about him. About how maybe D had liked him, even though he was a human.

But it wasn't. "Even my fears about running the shop," D muttered. "My worries that I could not live up to the legacy of my ancestors. To Grandfather's expectations." He smiled bitterly. "Of course, it appears that I have not."

"Hold it," Leon said, unwilling for this to turn into a pity party, and even more unwilling for it to turn into something that could make D change his mind. Because he still could, no matter what he'd said last night. "What about what the dragon said?" He couldn't believe he'd just said something like that out loud, but he pressed on. "That your grandpa's got the wrong idea. About how to do things. That it's _better_ this way."

"'This way?'" D repeated, looking arch.

"Yeah," Leon said, forcing himself to keep eye-contact. He had to get better at talking about the gay stuff. Had to. "This way. You and me."

"You and me," D mused. The vulnerable expression was completely gone now, but Leon couldn't say for sure what had taken its place. He looked closed-off now. "An odd concept, to be sure." He eased away from Leon far enough that he could prop himself up on one elbow. "You still wish to marry me."

He hadn't asked it like a question, but Leon said, "Yeah," anyway.

"Why?" D asked. "I am not the person you thought I was when you proposed."

Leon sat up against the headboard, wishing he felt less hungover, just in case this was gonna turn into another epic shouting match. D didn't look like he was about to fly off the handle, but with him, you never knew. That was part of what made him -- life with him -- so exciting. And frustrating. And exciting.

"Wrong," he said. "I mean, I didn't know all that stuff about the shop and your grandfather and the dragon and everything. Doesn't mean you're not the same person I've been hanging out with for two years. Right?"

"My past is an undeniable part of who I am," D argued. "Surely, finding out that I am not human…"

"D," Leon interrupted, staring him dead in the eye and taking hold of one of his hands, "tell me straight. Is there anybody, anywhere, who knows you as good as I do?"

D stared at him like he'd just said something incredible. "…As 'well' as I do," he corrected, after a second.

"Thought so," Leon said.

"That's not saying much," D snapped. "We are a solitary race. No one truly 'knows' us. Detective, my isolation is a part of my identity -- I am _meant_ to be alone. Never to have a mate."

"What?" Leon glared at him and decided they might as well lay all the cards on the table. "You said yes, last night. How come you said yes if you aren't meant to have a -- " He couldn't say 'mate.' Too New-Age-bullshitty. "To hook up? Your grandpa and your dad and your sister had to come from somewhere, right?"

"First of all," D said, "I have no sister. I will explain later," he said, loudly, over Leon's protests, "for that is a matter for another time. But my race, my species -- we do not require the intervention of an outsider's DNA to reproduce. An evolutionary oddity deliberately cultivated after we were very nearly wiped out." His eyes narrowed in a way that brought the chills right back to Leon's spine. "By humans."

Leon's mouth went dry. He'd seen that look in D's eyes before. It never meant anything good. Generally, it meant that whatever was coming up could be really, really bad. Maybe something he didn't want to hear. Maybe it could even still be a deal-breaker.

"Okay," he said. "Tell me."

* * *

_A betting pool!_

Chris stared aghast at Pon-chan as she sipped her milk complacently.

"She only looks sweet and innocent," T-chan said, rolling his eyes as he tore into a drumstick.

"The Count won't mind," Pon-chan said. Chris knew that was true. The Count could never stay mad at Pon-chan for very long about anything. "Besides, everyone's talking about it. This is a way to feel like we're doing something about it, too, even though we can't, really."

_But what are people betting on?_

"Duh," Pon-chan said, reaching for a cookie. "Whether the Count moves the shop. Whether he marries your brother. If they do, what the odds are of them having babies." Her eyes went all starry for a moment. "Oh, I hope they do!"

_They can't have babies!_ Chris said. _They're both men! The Count told me only women have babies!_

"The Count's family is special," T-chan said. "Let's leave it at that and we'll all be happier, okay?"

"But could he have babies _with_ someone?" Pon-chan demanded, looking more excited by the minute at the prospect. "Not just another Count D, but a real baby that's half him and half somebody else?" She clapped her hands. "Wouldn't that be wonderful? Maybe he'd let us babysit!"

"I'm going to throw up," T-chan said. "Tell you what, put me down for this. Odds on him cutting that moron's dick off and kicking him out for good."

Chris's lip wobbled and, to his horror, he could feel his eyes welling up with tears. T-chan was going to laugh at him for being a crybaby.

"Crybaby," T-chan sneered. Chris hated being right.

_I don't want to go,_ he pleaded. _If Leon goes for good, I have to go too. Do you really think he'll kick Leon out forever?_

T-chan looked like he wanted to say something really mean. But instead he snarled down at his plate of chicken. "Hasn't yet," he muttered. "Why the hell should he start now?"

That made Chris feel a little better, at least.

* * *

Leon really wished he had a beer.

"So, okay," he said. He was sitting on the edge of the bed now, while D paced around the room, which had seemed to make it easier for him to unload his family's tragic history and their whackadoo response to it. "Chinese prince guy gets turned down. Chinese prince guy gets blue balls and kills almost everyone in your family. Which sucks, but this is every single human's fault because why?"

"Because humans everywhere are the same," D said spitefully, glaring at him. He'd managed to get himself pretty worked up telling the story, dragging all those bad feelings about humans right up to the surface. "The nationality and the rank of the man matters nothing. His selfish instincts led him to thoughtless slaughter. The human story is the same in every race, in every country. You destroy what hurts you, or that which you do not understand. And in doing so, you murder the earth."

"So all humans are thoughtless monsters?" Leon's hackles were now well and truly up. He couldn't help it. Didn't want to help it anymore. What a bigoted bunch of bullshit. "That what your grandpa taught you? How's it any different from what filthy humans do, what makes _you_ guys any better than us?"

"We treasure the earth and her creatures," D said coldly. "We are not wasteful or thoughtlessly cruel. That is more than I can say for humanity."

"So you kill people!"

"I have never killed anyone," D snapped, rounding on him. "I merely give humans the means to destroy themselves. They do not have to take those means."

"The fuck?" Leon roared. "You show some poor bastard the spitting image of _his dead wife,_ and he's evil because he takes the bait? What the fuck _else_ should he do? What the hell is wrong with you?"

D's eyes were blazing with anger now. Leon immediately started looking around for stuff he might decide to throw. A couple of knickknacks and curios. Nothing he couldn't handle. "You are certainly an expert on my shortcomings," D managed. "How dare you take umbrage? When I think of the slaughter humans have done to their own over the ages -- "

"Shut the fuck _up!"_ Leon was actually seeing red now. "You -- you're gonna blame the whole fucking human race because of what some psychos have done? Guess what, _I_ didn't do that shit, _Chris_ didn't do that shit, just some people you never met. But _you're_ the one handing out a contract that you know some poor asshole's gonna break, and gonna die!" Leon pointed a shaking finger right at D. "That's no random psycho. That's _you."_ He took a deep breath that didn't do him any good. "You're just as bad as any damn human. Just as fucking bad."

D had gone white. Well, even whiter than usual. He clenched his hands into fists, bunched at the side of his thighs, pressing against his girly pajama pants. "So that is what you think of me," he whispered.

"It's what you just told me, asshole!" Leon grabbed at his own hair, because the alternative was D's throat. "You just told me you got some kind of genetic boner for killing my _species_. What did you want me to think?"

"I told you," D said, looking away, his hair swinging to cover his face. He was starting to breathe faster, and Leon could just barely see a patch of red spreading up his throat. "I warned you. I warned you that you could not accept this -- accept me. Of course you did not listen -- " He raised a shaking hand to the face that Leon couldn't see. "Of course you had to bring it to this -- "

Leon felt like he was getting swallowed up by everything: confusion, rage, and over it all, fear that he was going to lose something. Lose D. Which was crazy. If everything D said was true, Leon should _want_ to lose him. Non-human was one thing. Non-human with the mission to kill humans was something completely different.

Only D wasn't some psycho freak, or some mindless killer. Leon had seen him with Chris. He'd seen him have insights into people that nobody else ever had. He'd seen him give out pets that helped people, too, instead of killing them. What he was saying now…it didn't sound like stuff he'd thought about, or ever questioned. It sounded like something he'd been taught. Like he was reading a script. Leon just bet he knew who'd written it, too. How much of the vicious human-hate was really D, and how much was his family's influence?

If there was ever a time to ask, it was now. Leon tried to think how to put it. He sucked at this: talking, listening, being reasonable. "Listen," he said. "You like some humans. I know you do. Not just me and Chris, but…" his voice trailed off. "That Prince Salim kid, with the ugly cat. You liked him. You liked the little girl with the hairy dog. Christ, you even liked that terrorist with the jaguar!" Of course, he would have…Cesar would have understood all about killing people for some deluded cause. Bad example. "They can't be the only ones. So, you _don't_ think all humans are bad."

It sounded pretty airtight to him, but D didn't seem to agree. He still wouldn't look at Leon. "Do not try to convince me, or yourself, that I love humans, Mr. Detective," he said, his voice hollow. "I assure you, you will only be even more disappointed in the end."

Leon rolled his eyes. "Did I say you had to love humans? Fuck, I don't love humans. People suck. I oughta know, huh?" Did D think that he saw the warm and fuzzy side of people, in his job? They both knew better than that. "Still doesn't mean you have to go out and kill all of them. Christ, the way we're going, we're gonna wipe ourselves out a hell of a long time before you get to it." He glared at D. "The dragon's right. How many humans you even get, every year? You could do a lot worse. But you don't."

"And that excuses what I have already done?" D asked, too lightly. Still not looking at Leon, or even showing his face. His posture was as stiff as a board.

"No." Leon swallowed. It didn't. Nothing could. Being brainwashed by Grandpa (if that's what this was) wasn't the same thing as being forced to do something wrong. But Honlon had said something else, something that Leon thought was going to be really important in a second. "The dragon -- the other head -- she said you didn't really wanna do this. Get revenge. And she's you, so she'd know, right?" Yeah, beer would definitely help right about now. "D, look at me."

D actually turned to face the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. He trembled a little.

"Oh, quit it," Leon snapped. "D, come on. Can you tell me you like doing it? Like…" He really wasn't equipped for the philosophical stuff. "If your grandfather hadn't taught you to. Would you have grown up and done it anyway?"

D's voice was so low that Leon had to strain to catch it. "Sometimes it is satisfying," he whispered. Leon got a really cold feeling in his stomach. "Ah, Mr. Detective. If you only knew the truth of some of the people I have punished. If you only knew what baseness and evil their own natures led them to."

He finally turned around to face Leon. His eyes were shining brilliantly, and he had a tiny smirk on his face. He'd never looked less human to Leon than he did right then. "You don't know the half of what I and my family have done. And you never will."

Silence cut the air between them for a second, slicing up every inch between their bodies. After a moment, Leon found his voice. "You didn't answer my question," he said, proud that it came out steady.

"Didn't I?" D's arms were still crossed, but now he looked almost like he was hugging himself protectively.

"Shuko said your grandpa wouldn't bother us anymore. She said you needed humans to survive." Leon saw a small, but unmistakable shiver shake D's frame. "So quit. Your heart ain't in it and you don't have to do it anymore."

D wasn't smirking anymore. He didn't look inhuman anymore. He looked scared, now. Scared, lost, and young. Leon wondered how old he really was. "What do you want, Detective?" he whispered after a moment.

Fuck if he was going to jump through that hoop again. Leon just looked at him.

"You are insane," D said. "Truly."

"I couldn't take it if you kept doing the contracts thing," Leon said. "I'm not gonna lie. That's what the contracts are about, isn't it?" D nodded, shakily.

Leon rose to his feet, walked over to where D stood. He took D's arms in his hands. He knew he was in way over his head; that he was asking D to give up his whole way of life, and take Leon in exchange for it and be happy with that. But he didn't see any other choice, either. What was he supposed to do? Walk out with Chris, and leave D to pack up and run away, and start his killing-humans business somewhere else?

He wasn't sure he could handle this, but he definitely couldn't handle _that. _"Jesus. Look at you. Look at us. It doesn't have to be this way."

"I know of no other way to be," D replied, and then looked shocked as anything that he'd said it.

Like Leon did, either? Like his life had prepared him to live in a magic shop with dragons? Only difference was, he was getting past "weird," and it was starting to make sense to him: he'd always known something was off about the pet shop. About D. But he'd kept coming back to it, even when he'd known he'd never be able to make a warrant stick, because he'd started _liking_ it: that hint of something out of the ordinary, beyond the everyday round of filthy apartment and fast food and jerking off to porn and arresting the scum of the earth. He wished he could explain it, but he was all talked out, and so he kissed D, instead.

When they stopped, they were clinging, and D was panting. "Say you'll stop," Leon pleaded against his mouth, knowing this was dirty pool, and not giving a damn. "I mean, do you have to do it?" he added, as a horrible thought occurred to him. "Like, if you don't, do you die or something? Or does the shop disappear? Or -- ?"

"No," D said, looking up at Leon, still holding tightly to him. "No, I do not have to do it. But, Mr. De…_Leon…"_ He closed his eyes, probably because he realized they were doing his talking for him. "I don't know what else my species survives _for._ We have no purpose, but that. Or so I have always been told."

"Maybe you got told wrong," Leon offered, keeping his voice soft. "Sounds like a crappy purpose to me. Who says you can't think up a new one?"

D opened his eyes again, and now he looked amused. "A mammoth task falls to me, I see. To determine the future of my species all by myself."

Leon snorted. "If anybody can do it, you can." Still, he had to admit, D was right. Figuring out how to keep his species alive? That was heavy-duty shit. Then something occurred to Leon, just like that, and he felt his face flush. "Maybe," he blurted before he could stop himself, and he shut his mouth fast.

"Maybe what?"

Leon couldn't say it. It was way too stupid. But he could maybe pussyfoot around it. "Why," he managed, thinking fast, "why do you think that dragon said you needed humans to survive? Needed _me?_ Like…I mean…" Maybe this was subtle enough. "What can I do?"

D's cheeks turned pink. "I can only assume Shuko was thinking of -- " Looked as if he couldn't say it either.

"Of…"

D cleared his throat. "Yes."

Leon felt his eyes getting really big. "So, so you could -- " He gulped. _"We_ could -- "

"I think perhaps we are getting ahead of ourselves," D said quickly.

"Right," Leon agreed at once. They stared at each other, both still flushed.

"Will you be worth it?" D asked.

Leon scowled at him. "I don't know. Will _you?"_

D's eyes narrowed. "Certainly not. We have nothing in common. I am very exacting, I will not abide slovenliness, I have no tolerance for your filthier habits -- including, of course, pornography -- and I am certain to make your life a misery for the rest of your born days."

Just like that, Leon felt his scowl stretching into a grin. He loved that D thought he could come out with a snooty little speech like that and sound serious about it, all while he had his arms around Leon's waist. "No shit," he said. "Told you I knew that already. Last night."

D turned even pinker. "So you did."

"Tell you what. Give up selling killer pets," Leon said. "I'll -- I'll give up the porn." Or at least give up having it where D might ever catch sight of it.

D glared, like he'd just read Leon's mind. Damn. What if he had? What if he _could? _"And smoking," he said challengingly.

Leon opened his mouth to yell No Way, when he reflected that D was giving up a much worse habit, all things considered. But he'd been a steady smoker for almost ten years now. Christ, it was going to be like cutting off an arm. "If I switch to lights," he tried.

"I do not think I would like kissing you if you tasted of cigarettes," D said pensively.

Talk about dirty fucking pool. "If I chew gum…"

D tilted his head to the side. His eyes were gorgeous. "I want you to live," he said quietly. "Leon, I want you to live long and well and in good health. For as long as you can." He reached up and touched Leon's cheek softly. "Am I the only one who must adapt? Will you truly not do this thing for me?"

"No more contracts," Leon said, his shoulders slumping. "Ever. _Period."_

"…Very well. Yes." Leon closed his eyes, just for a second. D's hand lingered on his face. They looked at each other and didn't say anything, for what felt like forever. D was looking deep into Leon's eyes again, searching for something. "When you proposed…" he began, paused, and swallowed. "I wanted it. I had not realized until then -- how much. Not the marriage," he added, too hastily, "but what you were really offering, Detective -- beyond simple social conventions. And I knew I could not take it. Yet I could not find the strength necessary to force you to leave." He smiled bitterly. "If you have ever wanted to punish me for my many sins…you did so effectively, last night."

Leon didn't know what the hell D was talking about, but he figured that was par for the course. "But you can take it," he said.

A quiver ran through D's slender body, and he bit his lower lip, looking terrified and resolved all at once. "I will take it."

"Yes," Leon breathed, and pressed their foreheads together, like he had last night. All of a sudden, his chest felt ten times lighter. No more Grandpa, no more contracts. Leon Orcot and Count D to wed. Film at eleven.

It was a million to one shot, but they were still gonna be great. They were going to rock the fucking house. His instincts always told him when a plan was coming together, and his instincts had never, ever been as happy as they were right now. Whatever he and D were to each other, whatever they were becoming, it was going to be awesome.

"Now," D whispered.

Leon blinked and pulled back so he could see him better. "Huh?"

_"Now,"_ D repeated urgently, fisting his hands in Leon's shirt again. "Now, Detective. Before I change my mind." He gave a thin, sour smile. "Or you do."

* * *


	7. Chapter 7

For warnings, disclaimers, etc., see Chapter One.

* * *

_Chapter Seven_

The announcement had spread through the petshop like wildfire. Chris didn't know who'd gotten the news first, or how, but he'd never heard so much cheering and whooping. This had surprised him. He'd never thought that the people-pets had liked his brother. But Pon-chan told him that everyone was happy for the Count's sake, happy that he'd taken a mate at last, because it wasn't natural for a creature to be alone.

"Except, you know, for some of the amoebas and stuff," she added reflectively, and then made a face. "Nobody likes them, though."

As for Chris, he didn't know what to think. He still couldn't believe that Leon wanted to marry the Count. He couldn't believe the Count wanted to marry _Leon._ The Count complained about Leon all the time, sometimes so much that it was hard to get him to talk about anything else. But when he mentioned this to T-chan, T-chan just rolled his eyes and asked didn't Chris understand _anything_ about people?

Leon finally came out of the Count's room. He looked better than he had earlier in the afternoon; he'd shaved and taken a shower, and somehow, his nice clothes weren't wrinkled anymore. He looked sort of dazed and surprised, and had a dumb smile on his face, like he was sleep-walking through a really fun dream. "You okay, buddy?" he asked.

Chris couldn't think of a good answer. If Leon and the Count really wanted to get married, and _stay_ married, then Chris couldn't think of anything he'd like better, even if it was kinda weird. That meant they could all be together, all the time, really like a family. They might even fight a little less, because Leon wouldn't talk about women anymore, which always made Count D mad. And now Leon had finally seen the shop just like Chris always had, which was so cool. But Chris was worried it wouldn't work out. If Leon and the Count got married, and later realized they didn't want to -- if this was a mistake -- it would be so much worse than if they never got married at all.

_Where's Count D?_ he asked timidly.

"Getting dressed," Leon said. "You need to, too. Go get a quick shower and put on a suit or something. Do you have a suit?"

Chris didn't, but he knew one would be laid out waiting on his bed when he got there, all the same. So he nodded. Ran off and showered. Put on a nice new suit that fit perfectly, and Pon-chan helped him with the tie. Still had all his questions, when he, Pon-chan and T-chan all returned to the front room, where Leon sat on the sofa by himself, twiddling his thumbs and looking anxious. Chris wondered why he wasn't smoking a cigarette.

_I'm ready,_ Chris said.

"Great," Leon said, and his anxious frown went away, replaced with a grin. He reached out and picked up a small gray box from the coffee table, and showed it to Chris before putting it in his pocket. "When we get to the courthouse, you're in charge of this, okay? Don't let me forget. You'll be the ringbearer." Next to Chris, Pon-chan gave a soft, fluttering sigh of joy. T-chan groaned.

_Pon-chan and T-chan can come too, right?_ Chris asked, deciding he'd need his friends to be there.

"If D says so," Leon said. Then he glanced over his shoulder. "You didn't see him back there, did you?" Chris shook his head. Leon scowled, and then shook his head, glancing at T-chan. "Nah… he wouldn't bolt without the sheeptiger…"

"Damn straight," T-chan growled.

Chris had a million questions he wanted to ask, but he didn't know how. So instead he just asked, _Where are we going?_

"City Hall," Leon said. "Shit, I hope there's not a line. The paper said it stretched all the way around the block when the bill passed." He blanched. "God, those news crews better be gone."

Chris had been to weddings before, with his old family back in New York, but they'd always been in churches, with long boring ceremonies and even longer parties afterward. He'd never heard of a wedding like this before. At least it was something different--was Count D going to wear a big white dress with a veil? Chris closed his eyes and shook his head to make the image go away.

"Oh, man," Leon said, and reached forward, taking his cell phone from where Chris had left it on the coffee table. "I gotta call Jill. She'd kill me if I didn't tell her." He pushed a button on the speed-dial, held the phone up to his ear, and waited. Chris waited too.

"Hey," Leon said after a second. "Yeah, I'm all right. Feeling better, yeah. Still gonna take tomorrow off, though. And, uh…maybe more time. I dunno, I'll have to check. Nah, I said I'm okay. I'll use vacation, I guess… Listen, I'm about to _tell_ you, okay? The thing is, I -- " Leon suddenly paused and hunched his shoulders. "I…listen. Okay. You taken your lunch yet? Good. Can you just meet me at City Hall in, uh, forty-five minutes? I'll explain when you get -- " Leon stopped and his brow wrinkled. "What do you mean you hate City Hall? You're a fucking _cop._ You…" Then Leon turned red. "Stop saying 'phallic.'" Then Leon turned redder. "Look, will you just show up! Forty-five minutes, okay? If you don't come, you can't be mad at me 'cause you missed it." Then he hung up and rolled his eyes. Then he grinned at Chris. "Twenty bucks says she'll be there."

The Count had taught Chris that gambling was a very stupid thing to do, and besides, he'd never had twenty dollars in his whole life. So he just said, _Is she gonna be your best man?_

Leon stared at him, and then doubled over laughing. "Oh hell," he said when he'd calmed down. "Yeah, I guess she will." They both heard the light sound of footsteps coming down the hall. It couldn't be anybody but the Count. Leon turned around, still grinning, and said, "Hey, D, did you hear what Chris just said? He…"

Count D stepped into the room and Leon stopped talking. His jaw dropped. So did Chris's.

Chris had always liked Count D's pretty clothes. They were shiny and soft and usually had neat prints of animals or flowers on them, and they always made the Count look special. But now he looked even more special than usual, and Chris wasn't sure why. This outfit wasn't all that different from the others he wore all the time: it was all red silk and gold lace, with a gold dragon embroidered across the front, and the Count had a big ruby pin at his throat to go with it. The Count didn't usually wear that much red, but other than that, it looked almost ordinary, for him.

So Chris couldn't put his finger on why Count D looked a hundred times more beautiful than he did even on a regular day. Maybe it was the look on the Count's face. Chris had never seen it before. He was watching Leon like -- Chris couldn't put his finger on that either -- like he was teasing Leon (but nicely), or wanted Leon to say he liked his clothes (which Leon never did), or was trying to say something to him without speaking out loud (which Chris knew something about, all things considered).

Leon looked as speechless as Chris was, for a second. Even T-chan and Pon-chan seemed impressed. The Count sat down on the sofa next to Leon, his hands folded neatly in his lap. He was the only person Chris had ever seen who sat down like that, without using his hands for balance, or checking to make sure the chair hadn't moved.

"You look…great," Leon said. Count D smiled, a small, almost shy smile, and looked pleased.

"Red is the color of a Chinese wedding."

"Yeah, I know," Leon said. "It's lucky, right? And white's for funerals." Chris and the Count both stared at Leon, who looked mad that they were so surprised. "Hey, I looked it up, all right?" Now he sounded a lot more like himself. He gestured at the ruby pin. "Nice bling you got going on there."

Count D looked startled, and touched the ruby with the tips of his fingers, like he'd forgotten he was wearing it. Then he began to unfasten it. "Hey, no," Leon said quickly, "I didn't mean -- nothing's wrong with it -- "

The Count looked back at Leon with that sweet little smile again, and Leon's mouth snapped shut loud enough that Chris could hear it. "I know," the Count said. "But I think that I shall wear only one jewel today." He took off his little earrings, too, and set them on the coffee table with the pin. Chris knew from experience that nothing bad would happen to them, even if they left the doors unlocked. Nobody ever messed with anything in the Count's shop.

Leon reached down and patted the pocket where he'd put the ring-box. "Right," he said, sounding like he was having trouble breathing. "Right. Okay. You ready to go?"

Chris saw Count D's hands squeeze together really tightly before he said, "Yes. Let us be off." He seemed to notice Chris for the first time, and smiled kindly at him. "You look very dapper, Chris."

"He looks better than I do," Leon said, but he sounded proud of it, and even ruffled Chris's hair again. "He's gonna be our ringbearer."

_Is it okay if Pon-chan and T-chan come?_ Chris asked the Count.

The Count smiled again. Chris felt all his insides start to glow, and he knew his cheeks were turning red, just like Leon's. "I don't see why not." Pon-chan clapped her hands and squealed in delight.

"I'm staying here," T-chan announced. Chris turned around, ready to beg him to come, but T-chan was looking up at the Count. "If you're sure about this," T-chan added, narrowing his eyes.

Count D raised his eyebrows, but didn't look angry. "I am quite sure, Tetsu."

"Great," T-chan muttered, and stomped off towards the kitchen. "I got stuff to do."

The Count still didn't look upset. In fact, he smiled and looked quite pleased. Leon glared at them all, and then he hid his face in his hands. "So, the sheeptiger talks too, right?" he asked. "I might have known."

_Everybody talks!_ Chris said.

"That's what I figured," Leon muttered. "I still don't hear a damn thing." He looked over at the Count, but looked more confused than angry.

The Count tilted his head to the side, still smiling. Chris realized he'd never seen the Count looking this _happy_ before. He smiled all the time, but that wasn't the same thing. Maybe that's why he was so much prettier this afternoon. "You learned to hear your brother speak without words," he offered. "It will not be long before you hear the animals, as well. If you open your ears." He rose from the sofa.

Leon stood up too. "Oh, yeah," he said, "I called Jill. Told her to meet us there. She'd have killed me if I didn't."

"Of course." Chris could have sworn Count D looked nervous for just a second, but then it was gone, replaced by an amused smile. "And her reaction to the news?"

"I sort of didn't tell her," Leon said. "Just told her to meet us at City Hall. Look," he said to the Count's raised eyebrows, "I didn't want to break it over the _phone."_

"I think," the Count sighed, "that this day promises to be very unusual for everyone concerned." He looked sly as he glanced back at Leon while he rested one hand on Chris's shoulder. "I made a phone call as well, while you showered. I dislike the thought of standing in lines before a district judge. Richard has agreed to marry us himself. Wasn't that kind of him?"

Leon frowned. "Richard?" Then his jaw dropped. "The mayor!"

_Whoah,_ Chris breathed.

"Yes. But he doesn't have all day, you know, Detective," the Count said, and gestured at the door. Leon headed for it, his mouth still hanging open. Chris, the Count, and Pon-chan followed him. At the door, the Count stopped, and squeezed Chris's shoulder gently. Chris looked up at him.

The Count smiled at him, and the look in his eyes made Chris feel warm all over again. "Do not worry, Chris," he said softly.

And, like always, that was good enough.

* * *

Leon had been wondering how, exactly, he'd explain to Jill what was happening. What words he'd use. How he could manage to blame it all on her in the first place.

But when she arrived, it turned out he didn't have to explain anything. She spotted him, Chris, and D all standing together in a corner of the massive foyer, and he watched her taking in all the details: Chris in the suit and hugging the raccoon, himself in a jacket, and D all in red. Plus he and D were standing a lot closer together than they usually did. Leon didn't have an arm around him or anything, because he didn't do that stuff in public, but it was pretty obvious that D was standing…with him, instead of just beside him.

Across the foyer, Jill paused with one foot stepping forward, and her jaw slowly sagged open. D raised his hand and waved at her with the tips of his fingers, smiling politely. Leon took a really deep breath.

Next thing he knew, she was in all their faces. "I've got to be wrong. I'm misinterpreting, right? I'm sorry. I'm thinking crazy thoughts. So, uh, what's up, why are we here?" She was practically panting.

D glanced up at Leon, frowning, with a wait-just-a-damn-minute look on his face. "Didn't you say that she knew?" he asked. "That you were planning to -- to propose?"

Jill's jaw dropped again. Leon could see the dangly thing at the back of her mouth, from this angle. "I -- you -- ?"

"It was your idea," Leon reminded her defensively.

"I was joking!" she gasped, looking back and forth between him and D. Now her face was struggling between shock and pleasure. And a little worry, too. "You…I mean, are you really…God. Oh, my God." Her face split apart in a grin. "I'm sorry. I honestly didn't know. I know I teased you a lot, Leon, but I never guessed for a second that you two were really, uh…" She elbowed Leon hard. "All this time? I can't believe you didn't tell me!"

Leon and D looked at each other, and Leon knew they had just come to the same unspoken agreement: don't even try to explain anything. So Leon just said, "Uh, right. Sorry."

"You must understand, Miss Jill, it is not something one really speaks of in such a way," D said, sounding pious. "Not in my culture."

Leon thought D was treading on risky ground, there -- Jill knew a lot more about other cultures than most people, and when she didn't, she knew how to do her research. But she didn't seem to question him as she clasped her hands together excitedly. "Oh wow. I'm sorry, I know I sound like such a moron, but I can't believe it. Wow." Her eyes widened even more. "Wait, you haven't already done it, have you? I didn't miss it? And damn it, Leon, why didn't you tell me over the phone, I could have brought my camera!"

Oh yeah, a camera. Pictures would be nice. Leon hadn't even thought about that. But D took charge, saying calmly, "You have missed nothing, Miss Jill. Do not worry on that account." He smiled. "And a good memory is the best photo album of all." Leon couldn't stop himself; he reached up and gave D's elbow a quick squeeze, and let his hand linger on the silk. Now that he'd figured out that it was okay to touch D in nice ways, he didn't want to stop. Had to make himself stop, when other people were looking. Like now. All kinds of types passed through L.A.'s City Hall, but all the same, D's fancy outfit was attracting a lot of stares from passers-by, and Leon had never liked being stared at.

D had called up to the mayor's office right after they arrived, and now he said, "Shall we proceed? Richard is expecting us."

"Richard?" Jill asked blankly.

"The mayor," Leon said, unable to keep from grinning. Jill was gonna start catching flies if she kept letting her mouth fall open like that. It was nice to see her more surprised than him, for once.

D led the way into the nearest elevator. As he told Chris which button to press, Jill nudged Leon. He glanced down at her, and saw that worry had momentarily overtaken the glee. She mouthed silently, _Are you sure about this?_

Leon looked her dead in the eye and nodded firmly. Then she muttered, out loud this time, "I still can't believe you didn't tell me."

She wasn't kidding about that. Once she got over having starry eyes, he was going to have some explaining and apologizing to do. That'd be okay, if she could just hold it until after the…the wedding. Still a concept Leon was having a hard time wrapping his head around, but that's what this was, right? He looked a little guiltily at D, who was watching Leon and Jill with a polite, unreadable expression on his face while he patted Chris's shoulder. The elevator lifted into motion with a little lurch.

A wedding. Leon hated weddings. He'd never been to one where he hadn't wanted to sprint out the door the instant the organ started playing. He couldn't see the point of all that ceremony, when the real problem would be staying together after the party was all over. But what if D disagreed? He was the type who'd be big on ceremony and doing things right, after all.

But he hadn't wanted a big party either, or if he did, he hadn't mentioned it. _"Now, before I change my mind"_…that's how he'd put it. Yeah. Leon could relate. Maybe they could do something fancy after this was all over, to celebrate.

Thinking along those lines, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and said, elaborately casual, "Hey, D. Think we ought to go on a honeymoon or something?"

Jill fluttered her hand over her heart, and Chris looked even more excited. Leon realized that wherever they went, they'd have to take him too. Oh well -- he was the only thing that kept them from killing each other half the time, so that was probably a good idea. D raised an eyebrow and regarded Leon with a quiet look full of meaning. "Perhaps," he said. "I imagine we will have much to keep us busy at the shop, however."

Leon blinked, and then thought about it: D was right, why should they go anywhere when there were endless rooms full of beaches and mountains, all waiting to be explored? But then Jill gasped next to him, covered her mouth to smother her giggles, and turned to face the elevator wall, waving her hand apologetically. Leon wondered what the hell she thought was so hilarious, and then realized D was turning pink and looking embarrassed. Chris was frowning in confusion. What -- oh, shit. Jill and her dirty mind!

"I…ah…" D tried, "I did not precisely mean…" He looked stricken. Leon shook his head quickly, because what, was D going to explain what he'd really meant instead? D met his eyes, still blushing, and for a second he looked really nervous. He covered it up so fast that it was gone by the time Leon blinked, but that had been more than enough time for Leon to remember what D had confessed last night, before Leon had dozed off: he'd never done it before, with a human or anybody else. And now…

Leon was going to have sex with Count D tonight.

That single thought carried him through the ding of the elevator's arrival at the correct floor, through giving Chris the ring-box (and watching D slip him something too), through the mayor's hearty greetings and congratulations and nudges of "so, wanted to 'arrest' him--eh?" He was marginally more aware when he stood by D, took his arm, and listened to the mayor go through the vows from a little book he had, while Chris stood at attention with his raccoon, Jill, and the mayor's stupid penguin at his side. And when the mayor finally got to the part about "Do you, Leon Orcot, take Count D to be your lawful wedded…uh…" and D helpfully inserted, "Spouse," and the mayor said, "Right, spouse, to have and to hold, forsaking all others, till death do you part," Leon was able to say, clearly, "Yeah." And then, after his brain kicked in a second later, "I do."

He was afraid D'd be mad that he'd fucked up the words, but D just smiled up at him, and Leon had another moment of tuning out everything else in the world -- until D said, clearly and precisely, "I do."

Wow.

Then Chris trotted up to the mayor and handed him the ring-box and something else. Another ring. The mayor looked at the two rings, and then at D and Leon in embarrassed confusion, until D smiled good-naturedly and took the second ring, a plain, thick gold band, from the mayor's palm. "It has been in my family for generations," he said in a low voice, looking Leon steadily in the eye. Leon understood. He was D's family now, and the rest of them could like it or lump it. D took Leon's left hand and, without waiting for any prompting from the mayor, slid the ring right onto his finger. It went on like butter, and Leon could've sworn it grew to fit. "With this ring," D murmured, still looking into Leon's eyes, "I thee wed." He had a wry little smile on his face as he said it, but his eyes were as open and sincere as Leon had ever seen them.

Leon fumbled for his ring, wishing he had something as worthwhile to offer, like an heirloom -- something of his mom's, maybe. But he'd had his measurements correct in the store, and the ring slipped on like it had been made for D. No cheating magic there. D looked astonished and pleased, and when he smiled, he even showed some of his teeth. "With this ring, I thee wed," Leon said, determined to get it right this time, and he even managed not to wince when he heard Jill make a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

He and D stood there just looking at each other like idiots while the mayor intoned, "By the power vested in me by the state of California, I now pronounce you married. You may kiss one another," he added encouragingly. Leon stared at him in horror -- kiss D? In front of other _people?_ -- and he figured, from the convulsive squeezing of his hands, that D felt the same way.

"Or not, if you are so inclined," the mayor said after an awkward couple of seconds.

"Thank you ever so much, Richard," D said graciously, keeping his deathgrip on both of Leon's hands. "You don't know what it means to us."

"Yeah," Leon said. He couldn't kiss D in front of witnesses, but he drew him in a little closer by his hands. D came willingly enough.

"My pleasure, my pleasure," the mayor beamed, offering his hand, so that D and Leon had to let go of each other for a second. "Always ready to help out a friend. That's one of the secrets of being in office, you know -- can't lose touch with the human side of it that made you run in the first place…"

Leon tuned out the political babble as Jill and Chris rushed up to them. "I can't believe you didn't kiss him," Jill complained, but there were dried tear-trails all down her cheeks, and her face was red. Chris was grinning widely, and Pon-chan leaped out of his arms so she could crawl up D's body like an Olympic gymnast, coming to rest on his shoulder and chittering in wild excitement. The penguin just squawked.

D skritched under Pon-chan's chin, and patted the penguin on the head. "Peggy-chan wants her dinner, Richard, and it is nearly time for you to be going home, surely?" he said. "We have taken up more than enough of your day."

"Oh, happy to do it, just happy," the mayor said, and then added plaintively, "you sure you don't want a photo for the newspapers? You're so well-known around the city -- it'd make a great story, all I have to do is put in a phone call -- "

Leon felt his stomach lurch, but all D said was a firm, "No thank you." He glanced over at Leon hesitantly. Leon nodded as hard as he could in agreement. That's all he needed, his fucking wedding on the front page!

"But you guys'll put in an announcement later, right?" Jill asked. "You know -- one of those little sections in the paper -- "

What was up with all these crappy little details he'd never even thought about? Still, that didn't sound completely terrible, and Leon latched onto the alternative with relief. "Yeah. Maybe we could do one of those."

"Oh -- hold on a second," the mayor said, "we can't forget to sign the license. Let me get one of my aides in here to be the second witness…"

Paperwork signed, they thanked the mayor again, and headed down in the elevator. Jill looked at her watch and sighed. "I swore up and down I'd help the chief with the report for the Howell case tonight," she said. "You know, that F.B.I. agent who went postal and disappeared a couple weeks ago, just a few blocks from here? It's due early tomorrow morning. He'd kill me if I skipped out -- but I wish I could take you guys out to dinner or something, to celebrate."

Leon impulsively kissed her cheek. She could really be a great pal, when she put her mind to it. "No worries," he said. "Time enough for that."

"We are simply glad you could be here," D said, his hand seeking out Leon's again. He was holding onto Chris with the other one, so he looked like the middle link in a chain of Orcots. Leon liked it. He couldn't remember ever touching D this much before, and realized that it'd feel weird or wrong to stop. That was dumb -- D wasn't going to vanish into thin air or anything, especially now -- but he squeezed the hand anyway.

"Oh, I wouldn't have missed it," Jill said. "I think it's going to take some time to sink in, though." She laughed, but looked confused. "Some detective…I mean, I really had no idea…I mean, I'd guessed that you two liked each other, obviously, but I had no idea you'd _done_ anything about it…"

Leon had had enough blushing in the last twenty-four hours to last him a lifetime, so he willed his cheeks to stay cool. D cleared his throat and merely said, "Life has a way of surprising us all, Miss Jill." He gave Leon a glare that didn't look nearly as withering as it should have. "Sometimes on a regular basis."

"No kidding," Jill said. She nudged D lightly. "And Leon moves fast. You watch him. Hey…" Her eyes widened. "I haven't gotten any details yet. Who proposed?"

"I did," Leon said, "and that's all the detail you're gonna get." She giggled and looked like she was going to say something suggestive, but then she glanced at Chris and thought better of it. Thank God.

She left them at the front steps of City Hall, with a promise to explain to the chief what had happened. "Turn off your phone, though," she advised Leon. "Unless you want prank calls from the guys all night."

When it was just him, D, Chris, and a raccoon, Leon looked down at D, who was staring off into space, looking thoughtful. "Hey," he said, feeling awkward, "she had a good idea -- you two want to go out for dinner or something?" Because he hadn't eaten all day, and now that he noticed it, he was starving.

_Yeah!_ Chris said, but D shook his head.

"We should return to the shop," he said. Then he smiled again. D had never smiled this much, ever, that Leon had seen. It wasn't the same as his usual little smirk, by a long shot. For one thing, it left Leon's knees feeling like jelly. He hoped D didn't figure that out. "Dinner will be ready there."

"Dinner? Who's gonna -- " Leon closed his eyes. "Tell me the animals don't cook."

"I do wish you would not encourage me to lie to you, Leon," D said, taking Chris's hand and leading him down the sidewalk towards the parking lot. "It might become a very nasty habit."

"D -- "

"Don't worry, Mr. Detective," D said soothingly as Leon caught up with them, "the animals know you do not like fuss. I am sure it will be an understated, tasteful affair."

* * *

If this was how the animals reacted to stuff they knew he didn't like, Leon thought sourly, this marriage was already off to a bad start.

He couldn't really get mad, though, since it was pretty obvious the animals weren't doing this for him; they were doing it for D. The "understated, tasteful affair" D had promised wound up being a ten-course banquet with huge tables that seemed to stretch all over the shop, covered with linen, silver plate, candles, and steaming dishes full of stuff Leon had never seen and couldn't pronounce. And the animals sat at the tables as if they really were people, scrounging through the food that seemed perfect for each of them. Dogs snarfed whole silver plates of kibble and meat, while a creepy table full of snakes digested a bunch of mice who seemed to be having a lot less fun than everybody else. Birds of every color dined on seeds and mealworms, rodents ate nuts, and the damn cats just acted finicky about everything. Leon and Chris had steak and jacket potatoes for the main course, and Leon had never tasted anything so perfectly cooked in his life. He'd have been fucking certain he was cracking up, except that Chris was taking it all in stride, like this was something that he saw every day. Hell. It obviously was. Leon started hoping he'd be able to see the animals' human shapes soon, because he was positive this would have to seem a lot less weird, then.

As for D, forget "Count"; he was royalty for the day, no question. Whoever had whipped up the magic feast in less than two hours (Leon suspected the satisfied and fat-looking goat-tiger on D's other side) had gone overboard in making sure D was supplied with an abundance of cakes, candies, and dainties -- even he would never be able to eat it all. Leon kept grabbing his hand underneath the table, just to make sure everything was real. D didn't seem to mind at all, unless he needed both hands to handle an outsized éclair.

A bottle of champagne appeared in front of them. Leon didn't know much about wine, but a few sips told him that this was the good stuff, the hundred-dollar-a-bottle stuff that the real snobs whined about never being able to find. He tried to go easy on it. He'd been to weddings where the groom was slobbering drunk by the first round of toasts, and had always felt kinda sorry for the guy -- had to be hell just getting through the day, and it'd be nice to loosen up and enjoy the party, but damn, you had to be able to perform your duties when night fell, right? Leon didn't think he'd be able to face himself in the morning if he passed out drunk tonight of all nights. This was something he wanted to have memories about -- happy ones, and lots of them.

He glanced sideways at D as he put his wineglass down. D looked pretty happy now, eating sweets, chatting with the animals and Chris, and catching Leon's eye a few times with a little smile. Leon had caught him covertly admiring his ring once or twice already, watching the tiny diamonds catch the dim light of the shop. But he also remembered that nervous look D had given him back in the elevator, and the way he'd lain perfectly still at Leon's side last night, hands folded, body ramrod-stiff. Yeah. Leon was going to need some finesse tonight, for sure, and wine definitely wouldn't help. The last thing D needed was some drunk asshole pawing at him.

Shit, like that wasn't enough to give a guy performance anxiety, on top of the fact that he was going to be doing _another_ guy, and it wasn't like he had a ton of experience in that department. Or any experience, come to that. D wasn't the only one in for a first time tonight. God. Leon just hoped it wouldn't be a total disaster. They'd done okay when they were kissing on the couch…

_Perhaps it was a chaste union of souls you had in mind? A platonic partnership?_

Damn it. D'd had a point. Leon hadn't known what he'd wanted. Hadn't even known that he hadn't known…just that whatever he wanted had to involve D, somehow, or there was nothing worth wanting anywhere. That still felt true. Everything else would come out of that, right?

He'd long since lost all track of time, but eventually he noticed Chris starting to nod over his ice cream. He elbowed D lightly, tilted his head towards Chris, and D rose to his feet, clapping his hands together. "I believe our revels are drawing to a close," he said. "It is almost midnight -- time for everyone to be in bed." Leon glanced down at his wristwatch: 11:52 pm. How did the guy _do_ that, with no clock in sight? "Mr. Detective and I," D added, "would like to thank you for putting such a wonderful celebration together at the last minute. It means a great deal to us." He looked pointedly at Leon.

Leon stood up and looked around at the sea of animal faces, all of which were staring at him with uncanny attention. Talk about creepy… "Uh, yeah," he said, feeling really stupid about talking to a roomful of animals. "It was great. Thanks a lot."

He was probably imagining it, but he could have sworn the damn things were laughing at him.

Everybody got up and padded, crawled, flew, or oozed from the tables. Chris ran up and gave him a hug. _G'night, bro,_ he said. _Are you spending the night again?_

"Yeah," Leon said, feeling his face go red in spite of himself.

_Are you going to move in now, too?_ Chris sounded excited about the idea. _Are you going to leave your apartment and live here?_

"Uh…" Leon glanced at D, who was busy cuddling a lemur and talking to a dog. "I, uh, I dunno. We haven't talked about that yet." Or a million other things, and Leon couldn't manage to think coherently about a single one of them right this second.

_That'd be cool,_ Chris said, before a grumbling sheeptiger began tugging him away by biting his jacket sleeve. _If you lived here, I mean. Night, Count!_ He waved at D.

D looked up then, put the lemur down, and came over to pat Chris's shoulder. "Sleep well, Chris. We will see you tomorrow." Leon tried not to turn even redder at the word 'we.' Or the fact that D hadn't said, 'in the morning.'

Chris ran off with the monster and the raccoon, and looking around, Leon realized he and D were the only ones left in the parlor. How could a hundred animals sneak away so quietly? He heard a 'clink' behind him, and turned around to see D stacking plates.

He put his hand on D's shoulder. D didn't jump, exactly, but he tensed. "Hey, leave that," Leon said, trying as hard as he could not to sound awkward, and failing. "Nobody cleans up their own wedding reception."

"I suppose you are right," D said feebly, without turning around to face him. "The animals would be very cross with me if…" His voice trailed off. "Yes."

Leon would have melted at how nervous he was, if he hadn't been almost as scared himself. As it was, it was just weird to see D getting skittish about something. And if Leon was going to be honest, it would have been a hell of a lot sexier to kiss that smug smirk right off his face… "Nice party, anyhow," he said. "I never saw so much food."

D did turn around then, and to Leon's relief, he looked completely in control of himself. Only the stiff set of his shoulders indicated that he was tense at all. "It was very kind of the pets," he agreed, and smiled the mysterious smirk that Leon was used to. "But it was nothing compared to a true feast of gods and spirits, Detective. You still have so much to see, learn, and experience."

Leon just grunted, and slid his arms around D's waist. D allowed himself to be pulled in, but Leon felt a fine tremor run through him, for just a second. Fear, or thrill? "I ain't the only one," he said. "Am I?"

For a second, D was going to pretend that he had no idea what Leon was talking about. Leon could just tell. But after a second, he dropped his amazing eyes so he could stare at Leon's chin. "You are not," he admitted quietly.

Just once, Leon wished that he didn't suck so bad at being sensitive. "Look, D," he said, trying to find the right words, "I mean, I never…either…with a guy, anyway…"

D's lips curved in a sly little smile. "You shock me, Mr. Detective."

"Yeah. Well." Leon tried a laugh, and it came out sounding awful and anxious. "I mean, I'm just saying -- we'll work it out. Right?" He dared to squeeze D a little tighter around the waist. It was a nice waist: little and slim through the silk, like D might break if you squeezed too hard. All of a sudden, he was talking without meaning to, again, just like he had a couple days ago, when this 'marriage' idea had gotten in his head. "We don't have to do anything," he heard himself saying, then hastily amended it to, "I mean, anything you don't want, you know? I wouldn't -- Christ, it's not like I'm gonna hurt you or anything…"

D met his eyes again, and now he looked astonished. Then amused. "Is that what you think?" he asked, smiling slowly. "That I fear physical pain?"

"No," Leon said at once, hunching his shoulders and feeling stupid. He'd seen D fly onto rooftops and fall out of helicopters with barely a scratch. He wasn't going to be afraid of anything Leon might do to him in bed. What the hell had he been thinking?

D touched his face lightly, all sweet and affectionate; three days ago, Leon would never have dreamed of him like this, and he could barely get his head around it now. "What a wondrous creature you are," he murmured, sounding almost amazed. "You mistake the incidentals, as always -- but you still see to the truth of the matter."

Leon was definitely blushing now, and he didn't like it one bit. "What're you talking about? And don't call me a creature." 

"I am sorry." D didn't look remotely sorry. "I only meant that I _am_ afraid, but not for the reasons you suppose." He paused and pressed his lips together for a moment. "When you kissed me…on the sofa…" His brow knitted, and he didn't seem to know what to say next.

Leon tried to do it for him. "You, uh," he said, "you liked it…right?"

"Yes," D said, with a note of finality, as if he'd just explained everything. Apparently he thought he had. Leon was never going to understand him, not in a thousand years.

So he decided to make D put his money where his mouth was, and kissed him. He meant to do it firm, hard, to prove a point (though what point, he had no clue); it wound up being soft and gentle instead. Like he was still afraid of scaring D, or hurting him, in spite of everything they'd just talked about. D's lips were incredibly soft, felt incredibly good, and his mouth was warm. And he felt real nice, just right, pressed up against Leon, starting to breathe faster against him…

Leon was breathing faster too, when they pulled away. D seized one of his hands.

"Follow me," he said, his voice husky, and led the way down the hall.

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

**Warning: **this chapter contains sexual content. If that makes you uncomfortable, or if you are below legal age in your area, please leave now.

Other warnings, disclaimers, etc., in Chapter One.

* * *

_Chapter Eight_

"That was wonderful!" Pon-chan said happily as she fluffed Chris's pillow for him.

_What was?_ Chris asked, snuggling down under the silky blankets, feeling very drowsy. He'd had a busy day, after all, and all the food he'd just eaten made him feel heavy and ready for sleep.

"Good question," T-chan said, turning down the lights until only one small lamp was left burning in the corner. Chris liked having it on -- he didn't like the dark at the best of times, and there was something about the petshop that made even ordinary night-time darkness weirder than usual.

"Everything was wonderful!" Pon-chan said, glaring at T-chan before she hopped up onto the foot of the bed and began pulling her nightcap on. "Your brother saw the shop and didn't run away, and the Count isn't going to make us leave, and then the _wedding,_ and he looked so _beautiful…" _

"And you won the betting pool," T-chan said sourly.

Pon-chan giggled. "Yeah." Then she paused and pouted at Chris. "I wish the Count had kissed your brother, though."

T-chan guffawed. "You tellin' me they didn't kiss? At their _wedding?"_

"No," Pon-chan grumped. Thank goodness, Chris thought. He still couldn't believe his brother and the Count were married. He didn't want to imagine them doing anything icky like _kissing._

"Oh boy," T-chan said, shaking his shaggy head and chortling. "This is going to be rich. What a marriage. What the hell's the Count thinking?"

"That he loves Leon," Pon-chan cried defiantly. "You know he does, so stop being stupid." Sleepy as he was, that made Chris pay attention -- he'd never thought of it like that before, for sure. Of course, that was why people got married, he thought, because they loved each other…he just hadn't thought of his brother and Count D that way, for some reason.

T-chan stopped laughing and scowled. "I know," he muttered, sounding resentful. "Yeah. I know."

* * *

For some reason, D had insisted on changing into his nightclothes when they got to the bedroom. Now that they were in bed, though, Leon had to admit it had probably been a good idea; he wouldn't have had a clue where to start with getting D's wedding outfit off him. Or most of his outfits, come to that. This was just a couple sweet-looking slips of pale, peach-colored silk.

Not that Leon could get a good look at it, because D had pulled the covers all the way up to his chin, while simultaneously trying to look calm and relaxed.

Leon sighed, figuring they were both way too dressed to make this work; he'd taken off his shoes and jacket, but that was it. No way he was getting naked before D did. Instead, he lifted up a corner of the covers and slid under, taking D in his arms.

A sweet, warm kiss later and they were both relaxed; a few more and they'd tensed back up again, but in a better way, clinging to each other and starting to breathe hard. Leon slipped a hand under D's silky top, and found skin that was so soft he wasn't sure where the silk nightclothes ended and D began. Wow. All of that for him, his hands, his mouth, tonight…

Take it slow. Jesus, take it slow. "So," he said, lying back with D all nice and close in his arms, "tonight's party was chump change, huh?"

D looked pleased and shy, and it was fucking adorable. His face was still flushed from kissing, but he seemed relieved that Leon hadn't started crawling all over him right away. "You should be thankful," he said. "I have many powerful friends who would have thrown a feast worthy of legend, if I had notified them of my nuptials." He smiled. "They might be quite put out, in fact, that I did not."

"Even if they knew you were marrying a human?"

D looked at Leon's throat then, instead of in his eyes. "Not all beings like me share my family's distrust of humans, Mr. Detective. As Shuko said, such -- alliances -- are not…wholly unknown."

"Except in your family," Leon concluded. D nodded. "Hell, D. Think they'll ever come around?"

"You have a saying in America," D replied. "'Don't hold your breath.'"

He was starting to look unhappy. Leon gave him a quick kiss on the forehead, a little weirded out at how natural that was starting to feel, and said, "Well…did you want a big party? I mean, I know it was sort of fast and all, and -- "

"I wanted this," D whispered, and curled his fingers into Leon's shirt, tugging him down for another kiss. "Just this."

Put like that, Leon had to give it to him. They kissed long and hard and hungry, and before he'd realized it, Leon had thrown a leg over both of D's, his groin twitching with the urge to thrust, grind, do _something_. Couldn't get enough. D was melting, just like he had on the couch, stroking his hands up and down Leon's back in time with their tongues, making soft 'mmm'-type sounds. Oh, God. Kissing _D,_ making love to _Count D,_ if anyone had asked him about this three days ago he'd have laughed himself sick and then hit them, but now…

Leon decided this wasn't going to be so tough after all.

But then D gasped and broke away. "Mr. Detective," he panted. "I…much as I welcome this turn of events, I…" Damn it, what did it take to shut him up? Leon leaned in for another kiss, but D stopped him with one soft fingertip at his lips. Leon kissed it instead, and D's eyes went a little glassy. "I m-might not be what you are expecting," he stammered. "My species', ah, biology is not wholly alien to your own, but…but it is a little…different."

For a second, Leon felt as if he'd been doused with cold water, imagining D having everything from two dicks to tentacles between his legs. D could obviously tell how freaked out he'd gotten, because he added hastily, "Nevertheless, I understand we are…compatible. It is a theory I have never tested myself, of course, but…" D's voice trailed off, and then he added, in a much lower voice, "But on occasion I have wanted to."

Whoa. Leon raised his eyebrows and pointed to himself. _With me?_ D nodded, looking ashamed. Whoa, again. In spite of potential-tentacle-freakiness, Leon felt himself grinning. D had thought he was meant to hate all humans, and he'd still wanted to bone the stupid detective.

"Cool," he said.

"Hardly," D snapped, not looking as pissed as he might have, because Leon had slipped his hand back under the silk, and had dipped it down low enough to stroke just the top of D's ass. He had to admit D had a great ass. "I…oh. It was very difficult for me. I…"

"Blah, blah, blah," Leon muttered, and kissed D again, not letting up until he was dizzy with it. When he pulled back, D was panting again, and pressing his long nails into Leon's shoulders.

His eyes were open, but it didn't look like he was seeing much, and his breaths kept coming out "oh." They were pressed all up against each other now, and Leon could feel how hard D was. How hard they both were. Hell, how different from each other could they be?

He went for the gusto, this time, and cupped all of D's perfect little ass in both his hands. Nice fit, and it made D arch up and whimper and start nuzzling at his ear. Mmm.

Should've been like this long ago. At least he'd figured it out eventually. Because D never would have. Or if he had, he'd never have done anything about it, he'd have just…

Leon kissed D so hard he might have bruised them both. "Know what this means?" he panted, grabbing D's left hand and rubbing the wedding band with his thumb. "Means don't leave. _Ever."_ It took D a second to process what Leon had said, but when he did, his eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to speak. Leon kissed him again, quick. "Please," he begged against D's mouth, and couldn't believe he was begging.

D cupped his face, pulled them both apart, looking worried. "Mr. Detective -- as I told you, I am not immortal, but I do not age. People will notice this. The time will come when I must leave." Leon's heart dropped into his stomach, and he got ready to start yelling, but D added, "But not now. Not yet. And when the time comes…you shall come with me." The worried look vanished into a soft, secret smile. "I do not break my promises, even promises made in a human court of law. I shall not let you go so soon." His hand curled around the back of Leon's neck. "Till death do us part, and so on."

That little smile -- Leon gave in to every fantasy he'd had in the last twenty-four hours about kissing it right off D's face, and this time, he had a feeling there wasn't going to be any more stopping for chit-chat. He squeezed D's ass again, ground their hips together, and kissed and kissed while D shivered, and sighed and moaned, and began to twine his arms and legs around Leon like ivy climbing up a tree.

Yeah. Not so difficult. So what kind of naughty parts did D have, anyway? Leon muffled a groan in the soft skin of D's neck, felt D gasp for air in response, and decided it was time to find out.

* * *

"Not this," T-chan grumbled. "Anything but this one."

"I want to hear this one," Pon-chan ordered, and stuck the story-book under T-chan's nose. "Chris does too."

Chris nodded, not because it was true, but because it would make her happy and let him go to sleep sooner. T-chan groaned again. "No, seriously, anything else. Do you know how corny this is? Come on. I'll read you _Peter Pan._ Or _Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooey_. Or -- "

"Pleeeeeeeease?" Pon-chan begged, and did that sparkly thing with her eyes. T-chan rolled his eyes and huffed, then flopped down in the armchair next to Chris's bed and began to read.

_The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea  
In a beautiful pea-green boat:  
They took some honey,  
and plenty of money  
Wrapped up in a five-pound note._

_The Owl looked up to the stars above,  
And sang to a small guitar,  
"O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,  
What a beautiful Pussy you are,  
You are,  
You are!  
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"_

T-chan stopped reading and started snickering. Pon-chan, who'd been snuggled on her pillow and looking very content, sat up and glared fiercely at him. "Don't you make any dirty jokes!"

"Stop me," T-chan challenged her.

"You sound just like Leon," she sniffed. T-chan went red and looked mad, but returned to reading the poem.

_Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl,  
How charmingly sweet you sing!  
Oh! let us be married;  
too long we have tarried:  
But what shall we do for a ring?"_

Chris sleepily remembered the rings the Count and Leon had exchanged today in the mayor's office, and wondered where they'd gotten them. The Count's was really pretty and sparkly. Leon couldn't have picked it out by himself, but then, the only person who could have helped him was Jill, and she hadn't known he was getting married, so maybe he had.

_They sailed away, for a year and a day,  
To the land where the bong-tree grows;  
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood,  
With a ring at the end of his nose,  
His nose,  
His nose,  
With a ring at the end of his nose._

_"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling  
Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."  
So they took it away, and were married next day  
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.  
They dined on mince and slices of quince,  
Which they ate with a runcible spoon…"_

A year and a day. Chris couldn't imagine sailing anywhere for that long. Did they have a bathroom on the boat? And what was a runcible spoon? What was mince, and quince? Had he eaten anything like that tonight? He didn't think so. It had been really good food, stuff he loved, stuff he knew. It had been the best party he'd ever been to. Bigger than Catherine's birthday, even. Definitely more exciting than a regular wedding. So much weird stuff had happened today, so many surprises, that he almost didn't want the day to be over. He wanted to keep his eyes open so he could see what would happen next.

_And hand in hand on the edge of the sand  
They danced by the light of the moon,  
The moon,  
The moon,  
They danced by the light of the moon._

Chris thought of Phillippe's beach, with the full moon over the white sand, and imagined his brother and Count D dancing together on it. Ha ha…that would be the biggest surprise…of…

T-chan closed the book softly, and tucked the covers up higher over Pon-chan and Chris while they slept. Then he rose to his feet and tiptoed out of the bedroom, heading for the parlor, where the work crew had just begun to assemble to clean up the remains of the party.

* * *

Leon fisted his hands into the silken bedding, counted backwards from a hundred in odd numbers, and tried his damndest not to lose his mind completely as he moved.

D had guy parts, definitely. But he also had…well, they weren't girl parts, exactly. They weren't quite like anything Leon had ever seen before, but they _worked,_ and everything down there was hot and tight and slippery all around him. There were…there were little soft ridges inside that rubbed him in just the right places to drive him insane on every thrust, and the fit was fucking _perfect,_ and it was taking every ounce of control Leon had not to start pounding until he came his brains out, which wouldn't take all that long, considering.

D was no help. If he felt perfect all around Leon, Leon guessed that he had to feel pretty damn good inside D, too, because every slow, smooth thrust he managed seemed to send D into fits. He had his legs around Leon's waist and his damp, flushed face tucked against Leon's shoulder, moaning and whispering stuff Leon couldn't make out, stuff that might have been in Chinese. He could guess pretty well, though, that it meant, "Don't stop." As if he could stop.

He knew D had never made love before. But it was like he'd never even touched himself, like he'd had no idea what his body could do, because he'd cried out and melted at the first tentative touch of Leon's hand, he'd been so _surprised…_

"Oh, God, D," Leon moaned, and shoved his hips in one hard thrust, until he was in balls-deep, and felt D quiver all around him, heard him whimper with delight, felt him dig his nails into Leon's back. And then, stuffed so deep that D'd be able to taste come if he swallowed, Leon ground and swiveled his hips, pressing D hard into the mattress, feeling that hot, tight channel throb all around him in reaction while D's cock twitched between them. D threw his head back and slapped a hand over his mouth to stifle a howl. Leon did it again, then again, and yanked D's hand away from his mouth, pinned both his hands to the bed. "Want to hear you, baby," he panted, pulled out, and slammed back in, trying to be gentle and forgetting how. D shrieked, arched his back, wrapped his legs even tighter around Leon, and everything got even slicker, inside. Did that mean he'd come? How could you tell? Leon wished he could think clearly enough to work it out. Instead, all he could do was suck on D's naked earlobe and mutter, "Is it good? Is it good for you?"

D sobbed something in Chinese. Leon stopped sucking and pulled back to look at him. D panted for a moment, before he focused enough to say, "I…I never…"

Leon stopped moving and kissed D's shoulder, trying to calm him down enough so he could talk. It didn't work. D shivered at every little touch like it was hurting him, but pressed himself even closer each time. "I d-didn't kn-knuh-_know_…Mister…" Leon pressed his thumb against one tiny, tight nipple, and D made a desperate 'mmm' noise that ended with, "Mister _Detective!"_

Leon hadn't known either. And he'd _had_ sex before. But never sex like this. "Should've done this long ago," he grunted. His hips began moving, faster now, and he wasn't going to be able to slow down again. He couldn't stop. He had what he wanted, and he had to _take_ it. Had to take D, have D. Had to have him _now. _"Should've married you the first fucking second I saw you -- hah -- should've known, should've had you _right then -- "_

D's body suddenly locked and quivered in Leon's arms, though Leon had no idea what had set him off; he spasmed, both inside and in his cock, and he cried out, a sound that was one part joy and two parts terror, a long wail from somebody who didn't know it was possible to feel this good and live through it --

Leon would have liked to help him, but he was coming too, coming like he was never going to stop, and had some doubts that he was going to survive it, himself.

* * *

He lived, but afterwards, clutching a sweaty, shattered D, Leon reflected that it had seemed like a pretty close call. Totally worth it, though, he decided as he drifted off to sleep.

When he woke up, it was because somebody was touching him. In nice ways. D. No confusion this time, about who he was in bed with. Felt like he'd been asleep for at least a couple hours. Leon opened his eyes, which felt gummy, and adjusted to the darkness. He blinked down the length of his own chest, where D was currently pressing soft, tender kisses, scratching Leon's nipples lightly with the tips of his fingernails.

Leon raised a shaking hand and gently stroked D's hair. D looked up at him, his expression both hopeful and humble.

"Could," he whispered, and paused to lick his lips uncertainly, "could we do that again?"

"Mmm, baby," Leon replied, stretching luxuriously and pulling D up into his arms. He still felt raw and exhausted, and his cock was saying it might not be up for Round Two right this second. But he slipped his hand down, parted D's sticky thighs and found the warmth and wetness; then watched D tilt his head back, closing his eyes and panting with pleasure, eagerly abandoning himself to sensations he'd just discovered. To lazy, willing fingers and then, moments later, a mouth that made him scream at the first touch of tongue.

Leon could improvise pretty well when he had to.

* * *

They slept for longer, after that. When Leon woke up, his body told him it was morning, even though he couldn't see a clock; the gold sunlight filtering through the bedroom curtains bore him out.

D began to wake up too, still pressed tightly against Leon. Still wet from earlier, and they were in the perfect position to…half-asleep and hard, Leon slid right inside, moaning quietly against D's shoulder while D gasped and squirmed, already murmuring his way through a little climax. Nice way to greet the day. It took all of one minute for Leon to come, groaning in relief, feeling like D's body was actually stroking and squeezing him from the inside.

God damn it, what a crime, for D to think he had to stay untouched and pure and lonely his whole life. He loved getting stroked and kissed, and some parts of him were so sensitive that even the lightest touch sent him halfway to ecstasy, faster than candy, even. He was _made_ for fucking, made for love. Leon reached down between them, stroked at D's entrance around his softening cock, his own flesh so sensitive that his eyes watered when he brushed against it. D gave a fluttering sigh, pulled on his own cock, and came, gasping silently this time. Then he just lay there, pink-cheeked and panting, with a big smile on his face. Leon's own grin felt even bigger.

"Better'n coffee," he said by way of morning greeting, kissing D behind the ear.

D opened his eyes, which sparkled at Leon with mischief and happiness. "Or tea, I daresay," he replied, sounding breathless.

Leon figured out, right that second, that he was in love. Oh. Well, that was probably good, all things considered. His heart squeezed in his chest, so hard it hurt, but it felt different than the way it had squeezed before, when he'd been so afraid that D was going to leave. He didn't know how to say it out loud, or if he should. "That was," he tried, mumbling, "that was the best I ever had. Last night. This morning. All of it."

D kept smiling, but his eyes narrowed into seductive little slits, and he actually purred. "Surely that goes without saying, Detective." Leon felt his face go all hot and red. Then D moved, and his smile vanished, replaced with a pout of disgust. "We are very sticky. And we smell."

"Sign of a good night," Leon said, wishing the blush would go away.

"Perhaps," D said, with a sniff and a toss of his head, "but we should wash." Then the inviting look was back again. Leon had never met anyone else whose moods and expressions could change so fast, and who wasn't flighty or scatterbrained or, hell, bipolar on top of it. "You have seen my bath. It is large enough for two."

For someone who'd said that sex was "not necessary" just yesterday -- the day before yesterday? Oh, whenever -- D sure adapted fast. Leon swallowed, realizing his mouth had gone dry at the thought of him and D in the enormous tub. "Yeah," he said like an idiot. He hoped D wasn't expecting the sun and the stars from a guy who'd just come three times in a single night, but he figured he could have some fun groping that sweet, smooth skin in the water all the same.

_All for me, baby._

It was a selfish thought, sure. But as they got out of bed, and Leon caught D watching him with gleaming eyes, he flattered himself that D was thinking the same thing.

* * *


	9. Chapter 9

For warnings, disclaimers, etc., see Chapter One.

* * *

_Chapter Nine_

Chris had had breakfast with Leon and the Count lots of times, but it had never been like this.

For one thing, Leon had never spent the night before. He usually came in before work, without being asked, which made the Count mad, and helped himself to whatever was on the table. Somehow there was always plenty of food for everybody, though. And then he and the Count would argue with each other, sometimes loud and sometimes just sort of snappy, and Leon would leave a mess on the table behind him when he went to work, and the Count would complain about him for a long time afterwards.

Today, though, everybody was being nice. Leon was wearing a bathrobe; Chris wondered where the Count had found something big enough to fit him, before deciding it had to have come from the same place his suit had yesterday. The Count was wrapped up in a silky robe that looked different from his normal clothes. Chris was wearing his pajamas too. He'd never been allowed to wear his pajamas to breakfast before. The Count always said it was uncivilized. But maybe the rules were different, just for today, because of the party the night before.

T-chan took one look at the Count and mumbled something under his breath. Chris couldn't hear it, but the Count shot T-chan a sharp glance and frowned at him. T-chan crossed his arms, sat down by Chris's chair, and sulked.

"What'd the goat say?" Leon asked, looking up from his cup of coffee.

"Nothing he learned from _me,"_ the Count said, and glared at Leon, but he didn't look really mad. In fact, after a second, he smiled a little bit, and Leon grinned back. Then he _winked_ and Count D _blushed_ and T-chan hid his face in his hands.

Super-weird. Chris hoped things got back to normal soon. In the meantime, he decided to ignore his brother and the Count, and talk to T-chan. _When am I gonna get to see you as an animal?_ Chris asked, poking him.

"Who knows?" T-chan shrugged, and yawned hugely, scratching his belly. He'd said he'd been up all night, cleaning up after the party. "Whenever you figure out how, I guess."

_But how is that?_ Chris asked impatiently. _My brother always calls you a sheeptiger or a goat-tiger. Are you really two animals at once?_

T-chan grinned at him, and Chris realized that his teeth _were_ kinda sharp-looking, for a person's. Creepy. But if Chris could see him as an animal, maybe it wouldn't seem so weird when he bit Leon on the butt. "You won't find me in your science book," he said. "That's good enough." Then he grinned even meaner. "In some parts of China I'm sacred, you know. How come you're not worshiping me?"

_You're not sacred,_ Chris laughed.

T-chan scowled. "I am too."

_You are not!_

"I am too! You calling me a liar, you -- ?"

"Christopher," the Count said, his mild voice warning them to shut up right away, "how is your breakfast?"

_Fine, thank you,_ Chris replied as the Count had taught him, and turned back to his plate, abashed. T-chan kept grumbling under his breath, but he let Chris pat his shaggy head, so Chris knew he wasn't really mad.

"Eat up," the Count urged. "We have much to do today."

"We do?" Leon asked, crumbs from his toast dribbling out of his mouth.

The Count sighed, but still didn't look upset. "The tour of the shop you took last…ah, the night _before_ last was very short. There is still so much to see."

Leon looked super-alert, then, like he did when he'd just figured out a clue. "Right," he said. "Yeah. Hey, can we hit that beach again? I'd kinda like to see it in the daylight."

The Count smiled a little smile into his teacup, and took a sip. "We may indeed; and we may stay as long as you wish. The water there is clear and pure, and the air is fresh and clean."

"Not like L.A., huh," Leon grunted, and took a long drink from his mug. "Sounds great to me."

"How many days are you planning to take off from work?" the Count asked, sounding almost shy as he glanced at Leon again.

"Dunno," Leon said, and belched. "Oh, 'scuse me. Well, I used up most of my vacation days on a beach trip I don't even remember, but I got a couple left. Tons of sick leave, too, and I never get sick."

Count D gave him a sunny smile. It was probably because Leon had never said "excuse me" before. "You may count on that, Mr. Detective," he said. "Have you not noticed how Chris is never ill? Good health is one of the many benefits of life here at my shop." Then he blinked and looked back down into his teacup. "That is, if you wish to stay here," he added, trying to sound as if it didn't matter all that much one way or the other. Leon looked at him and raised his eyebrows.

_Yeah!_ Chris said. _Will you move in? Then you can stay here all the time!_

"I guess so," Leon said, looking like he was thinking hard about something. "Married people live together. Sure, why not? But I'm keeping my apartment rented," he added firmly.

The Count pouted. "Why?"

"'Cause some nights you'll be glad to get rid of me," Leon said with a big teasing grin. Count D pouted some more, but Chris noticed he didn't deny it. "Besides, I ain't a…you know, a…" He stopped grinning and glanced at Chris, and Chris knew this was another thing he wasn't meant to understand.

The Count didn't seem to understand either, though. "A what?" he asked, frowning.

Leon's ears were turning red. "A…_you know,_ you got money, and I don't, so…listen, I'm not…"

"Ahh!" Count D smiled suddenly, and looked delighted. "Are you telling me you don't wish to be a kept man, Detective?"

"Shut up," Leon muttered into his coffee. But Count D just laughed -- he actually laughed! -- and told Chris to wake Pon-chan and get ready for their trip through the shop.

_I get to go too?_ Chris asked hopefully. _But who'll watch the shop?_

"Of course you may come," Count D said. "And as for the shop…" he glanced at Leon again, "the shop will be undergoing some changes. I must think about how I wish to run things from now on. It will do us all good to leave it closed for a few days."

Leon mopped the coffee and crumbs from his mouth with one of the soft linen napkins. "Sounds good."

_You're going to run it different?_ Chris asked, puzzled.

"Differently," the Count corrected him, and then smiled. "And yes. Many things will be very different from now on. But I hope that will be an improvement."

_It was pretty good already,_ Chris felt obliged to point out.

"Yeah," Leon said, and then -- Chris had to rub his eyes to make sure he wasn't imagining it -- reached out and held the Count's hand. "Nothing says it can't get better, though."

Count D's cheeks turned pink, but he didn't tell Leon to move, and Leon even rubbed his thumb over the back of the Count's hand. Oh, yuck. "Chris, why don't you go pack?" the Count suggested, his voice a little hoarse. He cleared his throat. "The pets will help you select what you need."

"Yeah," Leon said, but he was still looking at the Count, not Chris.

Chris remembered something Pon-chan had said earlier, and frowned. There was something he needed to know, and it wasn't going to wait. _Are you two gonna have a kid?_ he demanded.

Leon choked on his coffee and yanked his hand off the Count's. The Count stared at Chris, his eyes going very wide.

_Because Pon-chan said you might, but you said that women had babies, and you're both men, so I don't see how that would work,_ Chris continued relentlessly.

"Well -- " Leon was going really pale, staring at Count D. "Uh -- well -- we, uh…"

The Count's smile looked as if it had frozen in place. "Christopher, would you mind if we discussed this later?" he asked politely. "I must speak with your brother, and you really do need to pack."

He hated that. _But are you gonna…_ he trailed off. The Count never told him anything when he didn't want to. Chris sighed. Maybe Pon-chan would help him pick out a swimsuit.

* * *

As Chris ran off, the sheeptiger hot on his heels, Leon tried to make his heart crawl back down from his throat into his chest, where it belonged. Shit. A baby? And D had…extra parts, and Shuko had said, and hell, he and D had as good as agreed that _someday_…but someday was supposed to be a long way off, and last night --

"Um." He cleared his throat. "D -- last night, I didn't -- I mean, we didn't use any -- or did you -- ?"

"Hush." D held up one hand in the air for silence and placed the other on his abdomen. He looked as if he was concentrating hard on something. Then he relaxed and opened his eyes with a smile of supreme relief. "Ah. We have no cause for alarm."

Leon's chest instantly felt ten times lighter. Still -- "You sure?"

D nodded, and looked sheepish. "I…I _believe_ our species reproduces solely via an act of will. That is the normal way of things. But I do not know what will happen when a human is involved, or indeed any other party. I was very careless."

"Me too," Leon said. "I mean, it's not like I don't want, you know, _someday -- "_

"Yes," D agreed quickly. "Someday. But not…"

"Not now," Leon said, heaving another sigh of relief.

"Yes," D said. "There is still so much to learn." He looked at Leon through his eyelashes. "For both of us."

Leon swallowed hard, but for different reasons, now. He swore he could _smell_ D, even sitting a foot away, could smell the scents of sex and readiness, and he didn't know how the fuck this was possible, but he thought he just might be ready to go again. Damn. He'd never thought D would be good for his ego.

"You should call the station before we leave," D said, his voice low and soft with promise. "Your phone will not get very good reception in the extreme climates." Leon couldn't tell if he was teasing or not. Didn't really care, either.

"We are gonna get some time alone, right?" he asked. "I mean, it's not like I don't love my brother and all -- "

"We have time alone right now," D observed, his voice as innocent as if he'd just pointed out that the sky was blue.

Leon's mouth went dry. "We, uh…Chris…packing. Trip."

He sounded like a moron, but D seemed to know what he meant. He stood up. "You're right," he said, looking confused. "I do have responsibilities. So do you. We should…" His voice trailed off, and he stared at Leon, managing to look both annoyed and pleading at the same time.

Leon didn't understand it, either. But, hell, they hadn't told Chris to be ready by a certain time, or anything. And he already had today off. And, jeez, they were newlyweds, so it wasn't like this kind of behavior was unexpected…

He reached out and took D's hand again. D read the look in his eyes, and sighed with relief. Leon stood up, too, and was kissing D before he'd really thought about it. It felt as good as a long drink of cool water in summertime. Better.

He pulled back. Glanced down the hallway to where he thought the bedroom was.

"Race ya?"

The End

_Some say Never  
Some say Unless  
It's stupid and lovely  
To rush into Yes.  
-Muriel Rukeyser, "Yes"_

* * *

_Epilogue One_

Monica Lubowicz was bored. Today was a day like any other day: making a cup of coffee after she got home from school, and watching the news in the kitchen with her family. And, today, trying to think of a nice way to turn Randy Smythe down for the dance. It wasn't that he was a bad guy, or even that he wasn't cute. He was. It was just that she wasn't interested. Like she was waiting for somebody else. But Randy was one of the most popular guys in school, she didn't have a boyfriend already, and she couldn't figure out who she could be waiting _for._

"…and now, the zoo story that has everyone talking," the female anchor said with a bright, perky smile. A small graphic appeared in the corner of the TV by her head, reading "Good Citizen Alert." Monica rolled her eyes and then closed them, inhaling the wonderful scent of the fresh coffee. These human interest stories were always so dumb.

"Disaster nearly struck yesterday at the Los Angeles zoo when a five-year-old leopard named Hyo escaped from her cage. A mother and her young daughter found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, only to be miraculously saved by a fellow guest who bravely lured the hungry leopard away from them. You're currently watching amateur footage shot on home video by a tourist at the zoo…"

Huh. That wasn't what she'd been expecting. Intrigued, Monica looked up from her coffee. And dropped the cup. And the spoon.

"Now the name of our hero is unknown, but witnesses described him as young and of Asian descent…"

Monica stared at the TV, oblivious to her mother's attempts to get her attention. She couldn't believe it. She had to be dreaming again. Because she'd certainly never seen him while she was awake.

_Count D._ The beautiful, mysterious man from China who'd obsessed her dreams ever since she'd been a tiny girl -- who had the amazing smile, and smelled like flowers, and spoke to her so gently and stole her heart away…

He was why she'd never go out with Randy Smythe. He was who she'd been waiting for.

"What's wrong, dear?" her father asked. Up in her birdcage, Pocky chirped. Monica ignored them both, watching the shaky television footage as Count D took firm hold of a small boy's hand and began leading him away. She couldn't believe how hard her heart was beating. She had to find him. The lady on the news had said he was in Los Angeles. She had some money saved up. She could buy a ticket --

Then somebody else was in the shaky video. A tall blond man who kept his hair in a messy ponytail, glaring at whoever was holding the camera and waving them off. The video didn't have any sound, but Monica could tell he was saying something rude, before he slung his arm around Count D's shoulders and led both him and the small boy offscreen. Just before they vanished, Monica saw Count D look up at the man and give him an exasperated, but relieved-looking smile.

"We've just received some information," the lady anchor said, "that the young man in question is known as 'Count D,'" she giggled, "and he owns a pet store in Chinatown. Well, no wonder he's so good with animals! And the other young man in the picture with him is his…ah…" she coughed, "his husband, whom he married two weeks ago, when California legalized same-sex marriages. Quite a story! Well, that's all the news for the dinner hour…"

Monica watched the TV go to commercials without really seeing it. She felt as if she couldn't breathe, like her throat was clogging up with sudden sobs. She couldn't believe it. In the space of ten seconds, she'd seen the man she'd dreamed of her whole life, and then lost him. He was married? Not only married, but to another _man?_ That meant she'd never had a chance at all!

Well…well, it was just stupid to be getting so upset. She'd never even met the guy, after all. Just dreamed about him. She had no right to feel so unhappy. Especially since _he'd_ seemed plenty happy, in those few seconds of screen-time. She was just a silly girl with her head in the clouds, always dreaming, never taking the time to look around at what she already had, instead of just wishing for more.

God, and she'd been planning to buy a plane ticket to fly out and see him! How crazy could you get? What would he have thought of her? What would his _husband_ have thought of her? It was definitely time to put all this nonsense right out of her head.

Maybe she'd let Randy Smythe take her to the dance, after all.

And inside her cage, Suioh felt herself beginning to swell with potential, feeling the heady rush of freedom upon her. The contract had finally been fulfilled: the young Monica had seen the truth of Count D's heart. And she, Suioh, was free at last. Tonight, when the family was all abed, she would burst out of her cage and soar through the stars once more.

A pity she hadn't had the chance to taunt Count D a bit beforehand. She always enjoyed that. But freedom was worth any price.

There would be all the time in the world for that later, anyway.

* * *

_Epilogue Two_

Across the continent, deep in the basement of a lab in Los Angeles, two other men watched the same newscast as Monica.

"Good heavens," one of them murmured as he sipped tea on a thronelike, overstuffed armchair, "what has my son gotten himself into this time?"

"That's your son?" growled the other from the couch where he lay sprawled, with one foot in a plaster cast propped on a stool.

"No, Vesca. Do not be silly. I am merely given to making random utterances about complete strangers who happen to look exactly like me."

The first man, who did look exactly like Count D but for the waist-length hair and two violet eyes, turned and gave an arch look to the second, who was a gruff-looking blond man of middle age.

"I almost arrested him by mistake," Vesca Howell snarled. "He's why I came down here. I thought he was you."

The elder D arched a delicate eyebrow. "You thought I had stooped to running my father's ridiculous shop?"

"I didn't know that much about you then, okay?"

"You don't know that much about me now." D examined his long, perfect fingernails. "Rather pitiful, for a man who sacrificed his reputation, his career, and nearly his life for exactly that end. How is your ankle today?"

"I hate you," Vesca snapped.

D's eyes gleamed. "I know," he murmured, sounding pleased. "And there's no other place in the world you'd rather be, is there?"

Vesca turned red and glared at him, misery and shame suffusing his features, contorting them into an unattractive, painful grimace.

"Not that I'm not enjoying your stimulating company, of course," D continued, taking another sip from his teacup, "but I've been separated from my beloved son for far too long. It's unthinkable that I should neglect him on this momentous occasion. Married, indeed." His eyes gleamed. "If ever he needed a father's advice, now is surely the time. Especially with my own dear father dead."

Vesca sat up from his sullen slouch, wincing at the pain the movement caused in his leg. "Your dad died? Since when?"

"Approximately two weeks ago," D said blandly. "As the first descendent, naturally I sensed it. Didn't I tell you?"

"What, that your _father_ died? Nah, must have slipped your mind," Vesca snapped.

"How rude," D said. "I assure you, it's been in my thoughts constantly. Why, I'm nearly prostrate with grief." He sipped from his teacup. "I saw it in my dreams, you know. So traumatizing. And undignified. Death by dragon. My, my, my." His lips trembled and his eyes sparkled, as if he was having the greatest difficulty restraining himself from laughter.

"You're a heartless asshole," Vesca whispered. "A heartless, evil monster."

D shot him an amused look. "Am I?" he inquired. "Might I remind you, Vesca, that you did not know my father. Rest assured he would not have approved of our association. Nor of my son's with his human."

"Our association?" Vesca exploded. "I'm hiding out here in your basement like a dog from the law, and you still won't tell me half the things I want to know! We don't _have_ a fucking association!"

"Nevertheless," D said, and he seemed even closer to laughter now. "You have improved my spirits immeasurably in the last month, Vesca. I'm quite the changed man -- really! And now, with my father out of the way, I can finally approach my son without fear of complications. Soon, I think, before he makes of his life a hormonal hell." His eyes gleamed as he looked at Vesca. Vesca turned redder, and looked away, back at the television, which was running commercials. "I know more about the biology of the D than any other, you know," D said conversationally. "It has been many generations since any of us has mated with another. But when we do, our bodies go into heat, exuding a pheromone that makes us irresistible to our mates -- and vice versa."

His voice had become low, soft, but intense. Vesca swallowed hard, his hand fisting on his thigh. "We become addicted to our mates, and they to us. And the more the heat prolongs without issue, the worse it becomes. Slowly, steadily worse until we can think of nothing but love; nothing but spending all day and all night in the arms of the beloved, forgetting food and sleep, forgetting everything but the need to rut, to claim and be claimed…"

Vesca gulped, audibly.

"Left unchecked, this naturally leads to a very pleasant, if exhausting death," D concluded, his lips curving in a pleased smile as he watched Vesca, who still studiously avoided looking at him. "I would rather my son avoid that fate. It does not seem to be that bad yet, if he can find time for outings to the zoo; nevertheless, the sooner I intervene, the better."

"What are you going to do?" Vesca croaked, looking at D at last.

"If he is a good boy and welcomes us as a proper son should," D said, "I will prepare a chemical compound for him that will cause the heat cycle to end. If he is not, I will merely tell him the truth and await grandchildren." His smile was cruel. "Our species does need fresh blood."

"You incredible jer -- wait, welcomes _us?"_

"Well, of course!" D rose from his chair and brushed out imaginary wrinkles in his cheongsam. "I would hardly abandon you after you went to all this trouble to find me. I am not such a terrible host, I hope. Let us hope my son is not, either."

"So, what, we're just gonna show up!"

"An excellent plan," D proclaimed. "I've learned that calling him on the telephone only leads to misunderstandings. Why, yes. We'll simply show up. You do have marvelous ideas sometimes, Vesca." He rubbed his hands together. "I simply can't wait to see that lovely totetsu again. And it's only a matter of time before the police narrow their search for you to this laboratory…why don't we plan to make a nice, long visit of it?"

"A nice, long visit," Vesca repeated, sounding numb as he looked at D through the layers of meaning, rage, and desire that separated and bound them.

"Yes. I'll have your bag packed. Won't this be fun?" D's eyes were cool and unreadable as they rested on his human companion, trapped on the couch by an injury and something less visible. "A new adventure. A new stage in our lives."

"A laugh a minute," Vesca agreed, watching D right back.

A new adventure. It would be that. And much, much more.

Really, Truly **The End**


End file.
